Lessons Learned from the Tree of Life Synagogue Response

On October 27, 2018 a lone gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA with the intent of killing anyone he could. Tree of Life was the home to three different congregations, Tree of Life, New Light, and Dor Haddash, all of which were preparing for or having their normal shabbat services.  What followed was the deadliest attack on the Jewish Community in American history. 11 innocent people were killed, and a further 6 were injured.

This attack is the subject of our documentary called Confronting Hate, where we dealt with the attack and aftermath in detail. However, we wanted to make a more traditional episode of The Debrief to cover the team’s lessons learned from the event and their advice to other units. In this episode, we will hear from several of the responding members of Pittsburgh SWAT. As usual, we will not mention the shooters name or discuss his agenda because we are hoping time will erase him and the hate he hoped to propagate.