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More than 60 attend active-shooter training at Cincinnati City Hall

Posted at 10:29 PM, Oct 30, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-31 00:58:08-04

CINCINNATI -- Lt. Bruce Hoffbauer knows the mass shooting that claimed 11 lives Saturday inside a Pittsburgh synagogue won't be the last of its kind, he said Tuesday night. Another will arrive.

"We just don't know where," he said.

With that in mind, Hoffbauer led dozens of Cincinnatians in an active shooter training seminar at City Hall. He said he hopes that passing on police tactics to ordinary people will help them save their own lives and those of their loved ones if the need ever arises. 

Cincinnati officers give similar courses several times each month, but the attack in Pittsburgh drew a larger-than-usual audience. Pittsburgh native Rabbi Yitzchak Creeger, co-director of the University of Cincinnati's Chabad House, was part of it.

"The Jewish community is kind of like one big, Jewish family all around the country and the world, and (the attack) strikes very close to home in many ways," he said.

Many of Creeger's Pittsburgh friends and family members attend synagogues located close to Tree of Life, he said. When he first learned of the shooting, his first thoughts were of worry on their behalf.

None were injured, but he knows members of Cincinnati's Jewish community who were personally affected by the 11 deaths. One local friend, he said, used to attend Tree of Life for services and knew every single one of Saturday's victims.

Even as he mourns, Creeger is determined to turn the tragedy into motivation -- to learn, to create a stronger Jewish community and to be prepared in case the worst happens again.

"The Torah says that life is precious, and you have to do whatever you can to save somebody's life," he said.

With Hoffbauer's help, he's a little more prepared to do just that.