Worker in NJ Kosher Market Died Saving Customer

Friends say he opened door so wounded man could escape
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 13, 2019 8:37 AM CST
Worker in NJ Kosher Market Died Saving Customer
This May 12, 2019 photo provided by Willams Machazek shows Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, right, with his wife, Martha Freire, and 11-year-old daughter at the Iglesia Nueva Vida of Newark, NJ.   (Williams Machazek via AP)

One the people killed in a shooting at a Jersey City kosher market was an employee who apparently died saving a wounded customer, the survivor's friends say. Douglas Miguel Rodriguez was an hour into his first shift after returning from vacation when David Anderson and Francine Graham opened fire, the New York Daily News reports. Chaim Deutsch, who was injured in the attack, told friends he ran to the back of the store and Rodriguez held the door open for him so he could exit. Rodriguez was reportedly then shot at the door; the 49-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant leaves behind a wife and an 11-year-old daughter.

Another person killed in Tuesday's rampage, Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals, was a father of five. NJ.com reports that his widow will not have to worry about paying off the mortgage on their home: It is being covered by the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation. The group says it has paid off the mortgages of more than 40 fallen first responders, "ensuring the families of these heroes have been able to stay in their homes." CBS reports that Anderson and Graham, who were killed in a shootout with police, are also suspected of killing 34-year-old Uber driver Michael Rumberger on Saturday in Bayonne, NJ. (Anderson, who had connections to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, allegedly posted anti-Semitic statements online.)

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