The hero rabbi held hostage in his Texas synagogue has credited active-shooter training for helping him save his congregants — revealing Monday that he threw a chair at the terrorist so they could finally escape.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker said the training he got from police and the FBI kicked in toward the end of the terrifying 10-hour standoff Saturday at his Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville.
“In the last hour of our hostage crisis, the gunman became increasingly belligerent and threatening,” the rabbi said in a statement of British terrorist Malik Faisal Akram, who “wasn’t getting what he wanted.”
“It didn’t look good. It didn’t sound good. We were terrified,” he told “CBS Mornings” Monday.
He said he remembered the security training warning that “when your life is threatened, you need to do whatever you can to get to safety.”
That came when Akram “wasn’t in a good position” and Cytron-Walker and the two congregants with him were close to an exit, he told CBS, saying he made sure they “were ready to go.”
“I told them to go,” he said. “I threw a chair at the gunman, and I headed for the door. And all three of us were able to get out without even a shot being fired,” he told CBS of the “terrifying” ordeal.
Another man held hostage, Jeffrey R. Cohen, wrote on Facebook Monday that at one point during the siege, the gunman ordered the trio to their knees.
Instead, Cohen said, he reared up in his chair, slowly moving his head and mouthing “no” — with the group fleeing as Akram moved to return to his own chair.
“We escaped. We weren’t released or freed,” Cohen wrote.
Akram, 44, was shot and killed after the hostages ran out. Authorities have declined to say who shot Akram, saying it was still under investigation.
Although Cytron-Walker and his congregants had been “threatened the entire time,” the rabbi said that “fortunately, none of us were physically injured.”
He was convinced that the “multiple security courses” his synagogue had held with police, the FBI and other groups were crucial to their survival.
“We are alive today because of that education,” he insisted in a statement.
“Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself,” he insisted.
“We are grateful for the outcome,” he said, encouraging “all Jewish congregations, religious groups, schools, and others to participate in active-shooter and security courses.”
The caring rabbi revealed how he initially welcomed Akram into his synagogue because he assumed he needed shelter, and he “didn’t hear anything suspicious” as they chatted while he made him tea.
“It was during prayer, while we were praying and my back was turned … I heard a click,” he recalled. “And it turned out that it was his gun.”
Thanking people for “all the love, prayers and support,” he readily acknowledged that “there is no question that this was a traumatic experience.”
Still, he insisted, “We are resilient and we will recover.”
The FBI on Sunday night issued a statement calling the ordeal “a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted” and said the Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating.
Akram had been demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al Qaeda who was convicted of trying to kill US Army officers in Afghanistan. Dubbed “Lady al Qaeda,” she is serving an 86-year sentence.
The Colleyville synagogue is in suburban Fort Worth, where Siddiqui is serving her sentence.
The synagogue’s president, Michael Finfer, tried to reassure the Jewish community that the attack “was a random act of violence.”
“Indeed, there was a one-in-a-million chance that the gunman picked our congregation,” he said.
The statements came as British police confirmed that two teenagers had been detained by anti-terrorism officers in Manchester.
“They remain in custody for questioning,” Greater Manchester Police said late Sunday.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel told the House of Commons on Monday that she had spoken to her US counterpart, Alejandro Mayorkas, and offered “the full support” of the British police and security services.
With Post wires
