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After shooting at Jewish Federation stopped, victim feared what she might find
When Dayna Klein crept out of her office after the gunfire had ceased, she was looking for other survivors.
Instead, Klein told a King County jury Monday, she walked into a “ghost town” after Naveed Haq opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle nearly two years ago.
Klein had been shot in the arm after defying the gunman’s order not to call 911, she testified in Haq’s trial. Klein, 17 weeks pregnant and bleeding from the arm she’d used to shield her belly from a bullet, padded down the carpeted hallway, her toes sticky with blood, she recalled.
She approached a conference room where federation staff typically met for presentations and fundraising meetings. Visions of execution-style killings flooded her imagination, she testified.
“I was afraid he made everyone go in there,” Klein sobbed. But when she opened the door, the room was empty. The federation offices, which had echoed gunfire just minutes earlier, were eerily quiet.
Klein then came upon co-worker Layla Bush lying on her stomach, bleeding from her abdomen. Klein noticed that Bush was trying to stop the blood from her bullet wound with a baby bodysuit that another friend and co-worker had brought Klein as a gift, she testified.
Klein made her way back to her office and called 911 a second time, waiting there until Seattle police officers escorted her out of the building. On her way out, she passed the body of her friend and co-worker Pamela Waechter, shot from behind as she tried to flee from the gunman.
Klein was the last of the five surviving shooting victims to testify against Haq, 32, who is charged with multiple crimes, including one count of aggravated murder for Waechter’s slaying, five counts of attempted aggravated murder and violating the state’s hate-crime law. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if found guilty of the murder charge.
He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. During the defense phase of the King County Superior Court trial, likely to begin next week, his attorneys will attempt to prove that Haq — who has a long history of mental illness — was delusional and legally insane at the time of the shootings.
Prosecutors are trying to prove that Haq, who bought guns and researched Jewish organizations ahead of the rampage, planned the attack and knew what he was doing. According to police and witnesses, Haq, who is of Pakistani descent, made anti-Semitic statements before and during the slayings.
Klein, who worked at the time as the federation’s director of major gifts, testified Monday that Haq said he was trying to make a statement while he held her hostage inside her office. “He began to state that … he would like to talk to [television talk-show host] Larry King and the Jews … need to get out of Lebanon and Iraq. This is his Hezbollah; this is his personal statement,” she said.
Klein first sensed something was wrong the afternoon of July 28, 2006, when she heard popping in the hallway of the federation’s Belltown offices. She peeked her head out of her office and came face-to-face with Haq, who had forced his way inside the secure building minutes earlier.
“He had a gun raised … he shot me at his first opportunity,” she testified. “By some miracle I was able to get my arm up in front my abdomen. I felt the bullet go into my arm. I slid down the wall and crumpled. There was a tremendous amount of blood,” she said.
After shooting Klein, Haq left her office, calmly telling her that if anyone called 911 he would kill them, Klein testified.
Still, Klein pulled down the telephone receiver from her desk and dialed 911. As she spoke with an operator, Haq appeared again in her doorway and told her “because you were too [expletive] stupid to listen, you are my hostage now.”
With Haq’s gun trained on her head, Klein offered him the receiver and then crouched quietly in a corner, pressing her wound, she testified.
Haq spoke in an even tone of voice to the operator until he got onto the topic of his family, at which point he became upset and shaky, Klein said. Suddenly, Haq put the gun down and walked out of the office to surrender.
Testimony in the trial will continue this morning.
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