On July 28, 2006, the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle were attacked in a targeted shooting that left Pamela Waechter dead. Waechter, 58 and the director of the Federation’s annual fundraising campaign, was shot in the chest while inside the building. She tried to flee down a flight of stairs but was shot again in the head from above and killed. Five other women were wounded in the attack, which police classified as a hate crime.

The shooter, identified as 30-year-old Naveed Afzal Haq, forced his way into the offices armed with two semiautomatic handguns. After the spree he took a hostage, spoke with a 911 dispatcher and eventually surrendered. He was charged with aggravated first-degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, kidnapping, burglary and malicious harassment under Washington’s hate crime law. Haq’s mental health became a central issue during legal proceedings; his first trial in 2008 ended in a mistrial on the insanity question, and a later trial produced convictions on all counts.