05 September 2006
A masked man has firebombed a Jewish Orthodox school in Outremont, Montreal. The man initially aimed his burning Molotov cocktail at the window of a classroom vacated just 20 minutes earlier, surveillance tapes show. Up to 20 teenage students at the school usually attend a Sabbath evening dinner and get-together in the classroom the attacker initially targeted, said school president Alfred Gestetner. The tapes show 12 leaving the building along the front sidewalk about 11:42 p.m. last Friday. Around 20 minutes later the man lit the Molotov on the sidewalk in front of the 250-student Skver-Toldos Jewish Boys School and approached the classroom window immediately west of the school's main entrance. He cocked his arm as if to fire the cocktail into the class and then hesitated, apparently noticing a screen in that window visible only at close range. Possibly deterred by the chance his lit Molotov would bounce off the screen, the tapes show the man instead turned to the school's main entrance a few steps away. With an overhand pitch, he launched the still-burning Molotov through a glass panel next to the main doors. The attack caused damages estimated at more than US$ 50,000 and it has sent shudders through Montreal's Jewish community. Police are not labeling the attack a hate crime "at this time," because the attacker did not provide a written message or graffiti indicating his motive. However, local police have earmarked three extra patrol cars to keep a close eye on Jewish institutions in the neighborhood.