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American Morning

Talk with Rabbi Mark Glickman

Aired October 30, 2002 - 08:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As the case against sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad unfolds, those who have known him well are shocked by the revelations. And last night on "Larry King Live," his first wife and son shared their feelings about the investigation and what might have happened to Muhammad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL WILLIAMS, MUHAMMAD'S EX-WIFE: My feelings are I really don't know. I mean if you can sit back in a car and kill someone, I just don't want to judge. I just feel like, you know...

LARRY KING, HOST: Are you saying that in some cases they might deserve to die?

WILLIAMS: If he sit in a car and shot innocent people, if they find him guilty for that, yes.

KING: Yes.

And, Lynn (ph), he's your dad. How do you feel?

LYNN WILLIAMS: Even though he is my father, in my eyes you reap what you sow. If you did it, you was man enough to do it, well, you're man enough to pay the consequences.

KING: So you would favor the death penalty if he did it and if he's convicted?

LYNN WILLIAMS: If he's convicted and that's the law, he has to deal with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Wow.

A federal complaint that would carry the death penalty was filed yesterday, but there has been no decision on who gets to prosecute first. That's going to be a while before we know how that's going to play out.

Late one night, though, last May, two bullets smashed through a temple in Tacoma, Washington. One slug pierced a fence and several walls before striking the temple's holiest spot, the arc housing a torah scroll. The bullets were fired by a gun linked to one of the sniper suspects. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

The spiritual leader of Temple Beth El, Rabbi mark Glickman, joins us now from Tacoma.

Rabbi, thank you very much for being with us.

RABBI MARK GLICKMAN, TEMPLE BETH EL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Take us back to that shooting that occurred in early May.

GLICKMAN: Well, we didn't actually discover what had happened fully until a few days afterwards. But as you said, there were two bullets fired at the temple and one lodged in an exterior wall and one made its way inside the building. So it was a few days before we put two and two together and realized what had happened and we immediately, of course, reported it to the authorities. They came and extracted the bullets and we sort of went on with our lives and forgot about it afterwards...

ZAHN: Now, you...

GLICKMAN: ... until, of course, this past week.

ZAHN: Right. So when you put two and two together, I mean how did even anybody even think there might be a connection between what happened at your temple and these two suspects being taken into custody?

GLICKMAN: Well, actually at first we didn't. I sort of on a lark and upon orders from my fiancee, to tell you the truth, just called the ATF to give them a friendly reminder of what had happened this past May at the temple. And they, after receiving that reminder, I'm told, checked out the bullets that they had retrieved from the temple building and lo and behold, there was a ballistics match with some guns accessible to the people who had been arrested for the sniper attacks.

ZAHN: So even though your fiancee was a great investigator and she seemed to have sort of a hunch this could be the case, when investigators finally told you they believed there to be a linkage between the two, what went through your mind?

GLICKMAN: Well, when we made the call, when I made the call I was actually kind of embarrassed about it, because I was sure there was not going to be any connection at all. And so we were all just very surprised and shocked. Since the news came out, we've gotten many, many calls at the temple, actually more from the media than from members of our congregation.

The people in the congregation who are calling aren't scared or terrified or anything like that. Most are just surprised to hear the connection between our property destruction and the horrible attacks in the East.

ZAHN: We should point out this wasn't the first time your synagogue experienced or confronted violence. You had an incident where someone sprayed graffiti on your building and then you also have a fire, I guess, in September of last year. Did you see this shooting in May as an anti-Semitic act? GLICKMAN: No. We, you know, we have no reason to believe that this was an anti-Semitic act, although, for that matter, we don't have any reason to deny it, either. We just don't know. The graffiti came with the tag words of one of these white supremacist groups. Clearly, the people who have been arrested for the sniper attacks didn't belong to that group. We don't know who attempted to burn our temple building down, but we have no reason to believe that this was in any way anti-Semitic. To call it a hate crime at this point would be premature.

ZAHN: There is a "Wall Street Journal" editorial which you may not have seen because it's the middle of the night from where you are, but basically posing the question about the prospect of these guys being tied to Islamic terrorism. Is that anything that's crossed your mind?

GLICKMAN: You know, we don't know. John Muhammad, we know, belonged to the Nation of Islam and that's all we know. To jump to conclusions, at least in direct relation to what happened at Temple Beth El here in Tacoma, to jump to those kinds of conclusions right now, again, is premature. You know, we had two bullets fired into our building. It made some holes in the wall. They were patched very easily.

Of course, the people whose lives he destroyed will never be made hole again. So what happened to us pales in significance to the murders and we, while we could very easily jump to all kinds of conclusions, we're not doing that yet simply because we don't know.

ZAHN: Well, I'll tell you one thing, I hope your giving your fiancee some credit for thinking pretty swiftly.

GLICKMAN: Oh, don't worry.

ZAHN: Thinking like a cop.

GLICKMAN: Absolutely, absolutely.

ZAHN: Rabbi Mark Glickman, thank you for your time this morning.

GLICKMAN: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: We really appreciate you taking our early morning wakeup call out there on the West Coast.

GLICKMAN: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 30, 2002 - 08:03   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As the case against sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad unfolds, those who have known him well are shocked by the revelations. And last night on "Larry King Live," his first wife and son shared their feelings about the investigation and what might have happened to Muhammad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL WILLIAMS, MUHAMMAD'S EX-WIFE: My feelings are I really don't know. I mean if you can sit back in a car and kill someone, I just don't want to judge. I just feel like, you know...

LARRY KING, HOST: Are you saying that in some cases they might deserve to die?

WILLIAMS: If he sit in a car and shot innocent people, if they find him guilty for that, yes.

KING: Yes.

And, Lynn (ph), he's your dad. How do you feel?

LYNN WILLIAMS: Even though he is my father, in my eyes you reap what you sow. If you did it, you was man enough to do it, well, you're man enough to pay the consequences.

KING: So you would favor the death penalty if he did it and if he's convicted?

LYNN WILLIAMS: If he's convicted and that's the law, he has to deal with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Wow.

A federal complaint that would carry the death penalty was filed yesterday, but there has been no decision on who gets to prosecute first. That's going to be a while before we know how that's going to play out.

Late one night, though, last May, two bullets smashed through a temple in Tacoma, Washington. One slug pierced a fence and several walls before striking the temple's holiest spot, the arc housing a torah scroll. The bullets were fired by a gun linked to one of the sniper suspects. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

The spiritual leader of Temple Beth El, Rabbi mark Glickman, joins us now from Tacoma.

Rabbi, thank you very much for being with us.

RABBI MARK GLICKMAN, TEMPLE BETH EL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Take us back to that shooting that occurred in early May.

GLICKMAN: Well, we didn't actually discover what had happened fully until a few days afterwards. But as you said, there were two bullets fired at the temple and one lodged in an exterior wall and one made its way inside the building. So it was a few days before we put two and two together and realized what had happened and we immediately, of course, reported it to the authorities. They came and extracted the bullets and we sort of went on with our lives and forgot about it afterwards...

ZAHN: Now, you...

GLICKMAN: ... until, of course, this past week.

ZAHN: Right. So when you put two and two together, I mean how did even anybody even think there might be a connection between what happened at your temple and these two suspects being taken into custody?

GLICKMAN: Well, actually at first we didn't. I sort of on a lark and upon orders from my fiancee, to tell you the truth, just called the ATF to give them a friendly reminder of what had happened this past May at the temple. And they, after receiving that reminder, I'm told, checked out the bullets that they had retrieved from the temple building and lo and behold, there was a ballistics match with some guns accessible to the people who had been arrested for the sniper attacks.

ZAHN: So even though your fiancee was a great investigator and she seemed to have sort of a hunch this could be the case, when investigators finally told you they believed there to be a linkage between the two, what went through your mind?

GLICKMAN: Well, when we made the call, when I made the call I was actually kind of embarrassed about it, because I was sure there was not going to be any connection at all. And so we were all just very surprised and shocked. Since the news came out, we've gotten many, many calls at the temple, actually more from the media than from members of our congregation.

The people in the congregation who are calling aren't scared or terrified or anything like that. Most are just surprised to hear the connection between our property destruction and the horrible attacks in the East.

ZAHN: We should point out this wasn't the first time your synagogue experienced or confronted violence. You had an incident where someone sprayed graffiti on your building and then you also have a fire, I guess, in September of last year. Did you see this shooting in May as an anti-Semitic act? GLICKMAN: No. We, you know, we have no reason to believe that this was an anti-Semitic act, although, for that matter, we don't have any reason to deny it, either. We just don't know. The graffiti came with the tag words of one of these white supremacist groups. Clearly, the people who have been arrested for the sniper attacks didn't belong to that group. We don't know who attempted to burn our temple building down, but we have no reason to believe that this was in any way anti-Semitic. To call it a hate crime at this point would be premature.

ZAHN: There is a "Wall Street Journal" editorial which you may not have seen because it's the middle of the night from where you are, but basically posing the question about the prospect of these guys being tied to Islamic terrorism. Is that anything that's crossed your mind?

GLICKMAN: You know, we don't know. John Muhammad, we know, belonged to the Nation of Islam and that's all we know. To jump to conclusions, at least in direct relation to what happened at Temple Beth El here in Tacoma, to jump to those kinds of conclusions right now, again, is premature. You know, we had two bullets fired into our building. It made some holes in the wall. They were patched very easily.

Of course, the people whose lives he destroyed will never be made hole again. So what happened to us pales in significance to the murders and we, while we could very easily jump to all kinds of conclusions, we're not doing that yet simply because we don't know.

ZAHN: Well, I'll tell you one thing, I hope your giving your fiancee some credit for thinking pretty swiftly.

GLICKMAN: Oh, don't worry.

ZAHN: Thinking like a cop.

GLICKMAN: Absolutely, absolutely.

ZAHN: Rabbi Mark Glickman, thank you for your time this morning.

GLICKMAN: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: We really appreciate you taking our early morning wakeup call out there on the West Coast.

GLICKMAN: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com