It’s a rare occasion where you see an active shooter who so readily demonstrates the fact that he learned all he knows about guns, combat, shooting, etc. from the popular media – whether it’s “news” reports, video games, social media or whatever – and that his true motivation is fame instead of what he’s expressed in his writings. But when 19-year-old Jon T. Earnest entered the Chabad of Poway Synagogue on April 27, 2019 and began shooting therein, that’s exactly what he did.
It’s reported that at approximately 11:25am on that date, Earnest entered the synagogue armed with an AR-style rifle and wearing a tactical vest in which were five magazines. The news reports go so far as to say that each magazine held ten rounds. Given California’s magazine limit laws, each of those magazines was in compliance with the law, but it should be noted that the magazine capacities in no way affected the outcome of the attack. Why? Because Earnest never even reloaded.
As a second indicator of his having learned how to commit violence from media and video games, Earnest began shooting but experienced a weapon malfunction before he had fired through the first ten round magazine. While it’s absolutely great that a malfunction occurred, effectively ending his attack, the fact that he had no clue how to clear the malfunction, reload with a fresh magazine and get back to shooting is another indicator of his lack of firearms knowledge or skill.
According to reports, when his weapon malfunctioned, Earnest was rushed by two members of the synagogue causing him to flee the building. Earnest was engaged by an off-duty officer in the parking lot but the only result of this engagement was the off-duty firing multiple rounds at Earnest’s vehicle, hitting the car as Earnest fled.
As another example of how Earnest was just seeking notoriety, he himself called in the shooting to 9-1-1 and was arrested approximately two miles away. Upon being pulled over by a San Diego officer, Earnest exited his vehicle with his hands held high, obviously doing all he could to avoid being shot. Inside his vehicle police found the rifle he used for the attack, the five remaining loaded magazines (ten rounds each) and a “tactical” helmet. Whether the helmet was actually a Kevlar ballistic helmet or some variation of the play helmets people use for airsoft or paintball games wasn’t reported that this author could find. As a final note on his simple desire to seek fame, it’s been reported that Earnest attempted to live stream his attack through Facebook but was, for whatever reason, unsuccessful.
Inside the synagogue, Earnest had shot and killed one parishioner before wounding the Rabbi and two other members of the congregation. It’s reported that the Rabbi, although wounded, sought to comfort his congregation after the attack. With more than 100 members of the synagogue in the building and a known ammo count of 50+ rounds available, the fact that there was only one fatality and three injured is a small miracle itself. Again, if Earnest had actually been skilled, the outcome might have been far worse.
The post event investigation revealed the motive to be antisemitism. Like many other shooters, Earnest posted a “manifesto” in which he cited a bunch of references that espoused killing all Jews and blamed that religious segment for… well… anything the shooter didn’t like. He also cited two other relatively recent religious attacks: the Christchurch Mosque attacks that were committed in New Zealand in March 2019 and the Tree of Life Synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, PA in October 2018.
One unique characteristic of this attack is the shooter’s age versus location chosen. At 19 years old it would have been more expected for the attack location to be a high school or college / university. For such a comparatively young attacker to go after a religious institution is indicative of his fixation on the Jewish faith as the cause of “the genocide of the European race” (whites) and his own radicalization of the Christian faith. The shooter himself was a member of the Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but this author has never experienced even the slightest hint of such hatred or radicalism in the Presbyterian church.
