In his first televised comments on Saturday's deadly mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, President Donald Trump appeared to place some blame on officials at the house of worship for not having stronger security.

"This is a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately," Trump told reporters. "They didn't. And he was able to do things that unfortunately he shouldn't have been able to do."

Authorities in Pennsylvania said 11 people were killed when a gunman opened fire during a Shabbat service involving children at the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. At least four police officers were also shot.

Many synagogues across the country have had security measures in place for years specifically because of anti-Semitism, amid a dramatic rise in hate crimes and violence in other places of worship. Anti-Semitic incidents jumped 57% in 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitic violence and other hate crimes in the US.

A former president of the Tree of Life, Michael Eisenberg, said that synagogue officials had worked with a security expert about what to do in an active shooter situation.



“It was a major concern for me, for us. We were working with the Department of Homeland Security to evaluate exit routes,” he told reporters outside the synagogue Saturday, saying they’d also worked with other synagogues to prepare for active shooter situations.

Nathan Diament from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congress of America told CNN on Saturday that most synagogues had security plans in place, ranging from police officers stationed outside the synagogue during services to trained volunteers.

When Trump spoke on Saturday morning, investigators had not spoken publicly about what security, if any, was in place at the Tree of Life during the service. Wendell Hissrich, the city's public safety director, later said they weren't aware of any security at the building on Saturday.