Jason Plotkin, the executive director of Temple Israel in Michigan, was on a Zoom call on Thursday afternoon when he heard a crash that sounded like cabinets falling over.

He realized there were no cabinets in the area of his office, though. He ended his call and peeked into the hallway outside the room.

“I couldn’t really make out what was going on. All I saw was damage in the hallway and smoke and people running. You can’t linger; you have to spur to action,” Plotkin said on Friday.

Plotkin’s office was next to the doors where an attacker, armed with a rifle, rammed his truck into the synagogue hallway. The congregation’s guards fired on the assailant and he was killed at the scene. The vehicle struck the lead guard, injuring him, but he is expected to recover, and there were no other injuries.

The response by Plotkin, the guards and other staff at the Reform congregation underlined the value of security training for US Jewish communities amid an array of threats to American Jews.

After seeing the chaos in the hallway, Plotkin said his “instincts took over and I immediately closed the window, locked the door and hid under my desk.”

He was huddled on the floor of his office, but smoke poured through underneath a side door, he began coughing, and struggled to breathe.

The attacker’s vehicle had ignited for reasons that remain unclear. Police later said that 30 first responders were hospitalized for smoke inhalation and others had to wear gas masks at the scene.

Plotkin did not yet understand what had happened, but heard “a lot of bang, bang, bang, which was our officers engaging with the perpetrator,” as the smoke overwhelmed him.

“I had to get out. I couldn’t breathe,” Plotkin said. “I had to make the decision to run out of the building and I weaved through different back offices and out the back door of the temple.”

Once outside, he ran into one of the congregation’s maintenance personnel. Law enforcement soon arrived. Police later said that officers were on the scene in under five minutes.

There were around 140 children in the building at the time, but most of them were in a different part of the building, which went into immediate lockdown.

Plotkin credited recent security training for the congregation’s effective response.

The FBI’s office in Detroit led an active shooter training program for the congregation’s staff at the end of January. The preschool faculty had a separate training session prior to that, Plotkin said.

FBI Detroit........

© The Times of Israel