After the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial: A reporter reflects

Heels click and echo on the walk across the first floor of the Joseph F. Weis Jr. U.S. Courthouse. The journey from the doors of the elevator across the building to the media room feels long and significant.

It was disorienting the first time I made the trek, to hear the lawyer’s opening statements in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter trial. I had just made my way through a metal detector as my belongings were searched by hand and an X-ray machine. I had to remove my belt and throw out my opened water bottle. When one of the federal guards asked what media outlet I was with and I mentioned the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, he looked away. There was a silent acknowledgment, a little added weight.

The media room itself — a cafeteria retrofitted with two large screens that broadcast the events unfolding in Judge Robert Colville’s courtroom — was bright and usually housed about a dozen journalists. Those populating the tables included reporters from media outlets of all sizes, both local and national.

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The atmosphere lent a camaraderie among the journalists, especially as the trial continued through the first half of the summer. If a detail was missed by one reporter, he or she would simply ask a question aloud and someone would shout an answer. Many of these writers, at least those working for Pittsburgh outlets, knew one another from covering breaking stories together. The writers of the Pittsburgh Union Progress with whom we collaborated — striking workers from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — had relationships with many others in the room. The Chronicle writers were the outliers.

And yet, we were also the ones who bore the knowledge — and the weight — of a community. Whenever there was a question in the media room about Jewish Pittsburgh, we supplied answers. When photos were shown and 911 calls played, it was the Chronicle writers who answered questions and who were watched by other journalists for reaction. It was a heavy responsibility.

When specific facts came out during the trial that we did not know previously, the Chronicle’s writers processed the information in real time. Some of it we internalized (and did not include in our articles because of the trauma it would inflict on our community) while writing daily stories and providing context for other reporters. Occasionally we explained tothe other reporters the “Jewish angle” of what was being discussed.

The testimony often became personal. I was horrified to learn the convicted killer considered the South Hills Jewish Community Center as a target. At the time of the attack, I was an employee of South Hills Jewish Pittsburgh. I worked in that building. The murderer worked — and lived — at Potomac Bakery; my home is blocks from the storefront. The killer lived in the South Hills. My congregation is in the South Hills, and we used to prop open our door on Shabbat for people to enter for Torah study. All these details put the shooter’s proximity to me too close for comfort. I was a hair’s breadth, and yet a lifetime away, from the violence. The most violent antisemitic attack in U.S. history didn’t occur in my backyard, but I still had to process that it might have and file a story as these details were made public.

Unlike many other reporters in the media room, there was no distance between the Chronicle’s editorial staff and the synagogue shooting. Some of us live near the Tree of Life building, others knew the victims, survivors or their families. Our team is part of the community that the killer targeted. At the same time, we were tasked with chronicling the trial of the perpetrator, in as fair a way as possible.

Our days didn’t end at 5 p.m. and our workweeks didn’t end on Fridays. Community members know our faces. They asked about the trial in grocery store checkout lines and mall parking lots.

They reached out in emails. We shared Shabbat dinners and services with friends who wanted to know the details — not out of some voyeuristic desire, but because they were afraid and appalled at the terror visited on Jewish Pittsburgh. We were the link to information they desperately needed to hear.

I am still troubled by what I heard and saw during the trial. I never before had a problem with sleep, but after the trial’s first day I began waking up consistently at 3 a.m. I still do. A subtle darkness sometimes settles into my dreams. I’m not prone to nightmares, but my dreams now are often filled with a darkness that wasn’t there before the trial. When at public events, I check for the exits and the quickest routes in and out of buildings.

I am not a victim of Oct. 27, 2018. I wasn’t in the Tree of Life building the day of the massacre. My family was not directly injured by the attack. But I did chronicle it.

And, for the last four years — the amount of time I’ve worked at the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle — I have dealt with the aftermath. I have put my fingers in bullet holes and recognized what it can mean when soiled pieces of carpet are removed from a synagogue. I have heard details I never wanted to know. I’ve received emails from one white supremacist who used the trial as a way to promote his mission while sometimes calling for lone wolf violence.

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle’s editorial team has spoken in depth with victims and their families; we’ve carefully pondered how to present stories no community should ever have to tell.

In Israel, after a terrorist attack, they clean up the debris and get back to work. In Pittsburgh, things move more slowly. But eventually, for many, the scars of Oct. 27, 2018, will fade as the massacre gets relegated to the annals of history.For me, for the staff of the Chronicle, I don’t expect that to happen. Some scars are too deep. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at [email protected].