The man who drove a pickup truck into a Detroit-area synagogue was described as suicidal in a 911 call to police in Dearborn Heights, according to a TV station report. The call came around the same time last Thursday that Ayman Ghazali attacked Temple Israel and its early childhood learning center in West Bloomfield Township, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from his home, WXYZ-TV reported.
The FBI said Ghazali exchanged gunfire with a guard and killed himself while inside the vehicle, which also caught fire. The agency said he waited in his vehicle outside the synagogue for two hours before ramming it into the building where dozens of children were inside, and that no children were hurt.
WXYZ-TV said the 911 call to Dearborn Heights police came on the same day as the attack and that the recording was obtained by the station. The report said there was no indication in the call that Ghazali’s ex-wife knew he had targeted the synagogue.
In the 911 call, Ghazali’s ex-wife told police, “I feel like he’s really upset,” WXYZ-TV reported. She said Ghazali had lost family members during an Israeli airstrike on March 5 in Lebanon, the station reported, and noted that a memorial service was held for them at the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights.
The ex-wife also said Ghazali sounded suicidal and that his condition was unstable. “He’s like suicidal,” she told police, and she added that his “voice is not stable,” WXYZ-TV reported. The report said she told police she “just want[s] to make sure he’s OK.”
WXYZ-TV reported that the ex-wife said she did not know whether Ghazali had weapons. Dearborn Heights police went to Ghazali’s house, the station reported, but no one was there.
Separately, Israel’s military said Sunday that the man’s brother, Ibrahim Ghazali, who was killed in a recent airstrike, was a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon. The FBI’s Detroit office, which is investigating the synagogue attack, declined to comment on that description, AP reported.