How the Plans of Two Men to Massacre Jews in a NYC Synagogue Was Foiled

By:  Hadassa Kalatizadeh

In 2022, two disturbed young men were arrested for plotting a synagogue shooting scheme.  Christopher Brown, then 21, posted on Twitter that he wanted to “shoot up a synagogue and die.” Matthew Mahrer, a Jew with psychiatric problems, helped him get a gun.

They were heading into New York City with a Glock 9-millimeter pistol, an extended magazine and 19 bullets, when they were arrested at the Long Island Rail Road platform at Penn Station on Nov. 19, 2022.  It was four years after the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue had endured a massacre, at which 11 people were brutally murdered.  This foiled plot rattled the Jewish community, to say the least.  “There were 19 bullets in that ammo clip,” said Glenn Richter, who attended a synagogue nearby the Mahrer’s home.  “Had they decided to go around the corner and go into the synagogue, I and others could have been among those 19 casualties.”

The Jewish community is still not only shaken but also shocked and baffled by the demographics of the plotting youths.  As reported by the NY Times, Mahrer was born and raised a Jew, and as a boy he wrote a 25-page book about his grandfather’s experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi internment camp. Brown had helped the local Orthodox rabbi across the street, by turning on and off lights and electrical devices during the Sabbath or Jewish holidays. Both were medicated from a young age, and bullied as children, and they met when they became roommates at St. Christopher’s, a home in Westchester County for students with intellectual and emotional disabilities.

As a child, Mahrer was assessed as having A.D.H.D., and also later anxiety disorder, PTSD and, in high school, autism spectrum disorder. Twice he was hospitalized for psychiatric care, once because he was cutting himself. “That was his childhood,” his mother said.  He was socially inept, awkward and bullied, but he was also smart — being accepted into a gifted and talented program in elementary school.  By the time he was in high school, though, he was failing and skipping out of school day, prompting his parents to enroll him in a residential school which would supposedly provide a therapeutic environment– and where he would meet Brown.

Brown was a lot less privileged as a child.  He didn’t have the same access to doctors or healthcare.  “We didn’t have electricity in half of our house, we didn’t have any running water, the heat wasn’t working,” his younger sister, Kayla Brown, now 22, told the Times. “We were very neglected. C.P.S.” — Child Protective Services — “was involved in our life a lot.” He had family members who may have been neglectful or even abusive.  As a child he was smart but also socially inept and bullied.  Things didn’t get better.  When he was about 9, his mother moved out.  The year after, his father left too, leaving him with his grandmother and an aunt.  His sister told the paper that things got worse for him when their mother left.

“I just remember he was more angry,” she said. “I don’t want to say he would get violent, but he would have tantrums a lot, which he never had before. He almost changed into a completely different person.”  Soon after his parents left, he was diagnosis was schizophrenia.

By the age of 12, Brown discovered Facebook and that’s where he was introduced to neo-Nazi discussion groups. “What attracted me to them was the sense of community, camaraderie, and a sense of purpose,” he wrote in an email from jail. At age 15, CPS workers seeing the state of his grandmother’s house, removed him, and sent him to group homes—one of which was St. Christopher’s.  The home was hardly a haven, with dozens of lawsuits since being filed under the state’s Child Victims Act, alleging child abuse there.

Last year the home filed for bankruptcy protection.  The two boys stayed in touch even after graduating there.  Things did not improve much for either boy.

Fast forward to late October 2022, three weeks before their arrest.  Per the NY Times, Brown, who identified as a neo-Nazi and had swastikas decorating his room, had posted on the chat app Discord mentioning a “plan” involving a synagogue, debating whether  he should do it on his own or “join the Nazi organization.” Either way, he said, “I’m not living to see my next birthday.”

He also contacted Mahrer on that same day via Snapchat, asking him about getting a gun.  The former had pulled through by contacted a man he knew named Jamil Hakime, who worked at the Administration for Children’s Services, and who sold them his own gun.

On the 18th, at 2:26 a.m., Brown who had become a regular at getting drunk and posting anti-Jewish rants on social media, tweeted, “Gonna ask a Priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die.” He added, “This time I’m really gonna do it.”  A Jewish organization named the Community Security Initiative, noticed the anti-Semitic threats and set off a multiagency hunt for the men, leading to their arrest.

As per The Post, this past January, Mahrer, now 24, pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a weapon, and he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro.  Last year, Brown, who has since converted to Islam, was sentenced to 10 years of prison, after pleading guilty to possessing a weapon as a crime of terrorism.