British national Malik Faisal Akram took four people hostage at a Texas synagogue outside Fort Worth on Saturday, the FBI said in a statement.
State of play: Authorities had initially declined to release the name of the 44-year-old suspect or identify the hostages, all adults, though police chief Michael Miller confirmed that one of those held was Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who leads the congregation.
- Cytron-Walker said in a statement Sunday that Akram became “increasingly belligerent and threatening” in the final hour of the hostage crisis. He credited previous security trainings his congregation had received for helping him and the other hostages survive the ordeal.
- "Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself."
Driving the news: Local police responded to a 911 call at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, about an hour after the synagogue's 10am Shabbat services, which were being livestreamed on Facebook.
- The FBI's Dallas Field Office, including crisis negotiators, and Texas Department of Public Safety then spent the next 10-plus-hours working alongside local authorities to resolve the standoff with Akram.
- Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted around 9:30pm, "Prayers answered. All hostages are out alive and safe."
"Around 9pm, the HRT — hostage rescue team — breached the synagogue, they rescued the three [remaining] hostages, the suspect is deceased," Miller said. One of the hostages had been released earlier on Saturday. ...
- Matt DeSarno, the special agent in charge at the FBI's Dallas Field Office, said Saturday night that the suspect was focused on "one issue that was