CNN
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A person arrested after allegedly firing a reproduction gun a number of instances in a San Francisco synagogue now faces a hate crime enhancement, town’s district legal professional mentioned Wednesday.
The hate crime allegation in opposition to 51-year-old Dmitri Mishin is tied to statements he made in the course of the incident in addition to social media posts he made involving “a number of postings of a person in Nazi-type clothes,” San Francisco District Lawyer Brooke Jenkins mentioned in a information convention.
Whereas officers didn’t share what Mishin mentioned whereas contained in the synagogue, prosecutors consider he “harbored antisemitic views and that was the motivation for his actions,” Jenkins mentioned. The hate crime allegation will improve punishment tips if he’s convicted, she added.
Mishin was arrested Friday, days after he allegedly stepped inside a synagogue within the Richmond District throughout a gathering and “made a verbal assertion,” pulled out what gave the impression to be a firearm and shot a number of instances contained in the constructing, police have mentioned.
Police recovered expended shell casings on the scene and on the time mentioned they believed he had been firing blanks.
Mishin was charged Wednesday morning with two felony counts of “making threats obstructing train of faith,” and 6 misdemeanor counts of disturbing a spiritual assembly and brandishing a reproduction firearm, the district legal professional’s workplace introduced.
He faces as much as 10 years in jail if convicted of all costs, in response to Jenkins. CNN has been unable to determine an legal professional for Mishin.
“It’s clear that antisemitism continues to be energetic and robust even right here in San Francisco, in such a various place, and it’s one thing that won’t be tolerated by this workplace or on my own,” Jenkins mentioned.
Mishin was initially scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday however will now be arraigned Thursday, Jenkins mentioned. Her workplace will request he be detained with out bail, she added.
“Anybody who would stroll right into a synagogue of that kind, and make the statements that he did and displayed what gave the impression to be a firearm, is someone who poses a public security danger,” Jenkins mentioned.
The incident on the San Francisco synagogue got here simply days after a person allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at a New Jersey synagogue amid a backdrop of latest incendiary antisemitic incidents, together with tweets from Kanye West, indicators over a serious Los Angeles bridge and messages projected on buildings in Florida.
The Anti-Defamation League Middle on Extremism, which has tracked incidents of US antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault since 1979, discovered 2,717 incidents of antisemitism within the US in 2021, up a major 34% from the earlier yr.