Haq, while living in Pasco, Washington, legally purchased two semiautomatic handguns in local Tri-Cities, Washington-area stores; receiving both weapons July 27, 2006 after the mandatory waiting period.

Police believe Haq entered the lobby of the building and grabbed the 14-year-old niece of Federation employee Cheryl Stumbo.

Haq allegedly held a gun to the girl's back and forced her to use the intercom in order to gain entry to the Federation's offices.

Haq stopped to ask receptionist Layla Bush about speaking with a manager, at which point the girl walked to a bathroom and locked herself inside.

As the wounded Waechter attempted to flee down a flight of stairs, Haq reached over the railing and shot her for the second time in the head, killing her.

[6][7] Dayna Klein, a Federation employee who was five months pregnant, heard the shots being fired and as she went to the door of her office.

[11] After the shooting, a SWAT team entered the building, looking for other victims or suspects,[12] while police closed off several of the city's main streets.

An FBI spokesman later said the shooting was most likely the work of a "lone individual acting out antagonism toward the organization," but added that "there's nothing to indicate that it's terrorism-related.

[5] Aggravated murder, the most serious of the nine charges, carried only two possible sentences in Washington at the time: life in prison or the death penalty.

Additionally, Richards said that Haq was mentally competent to stand trial since he understood the charges against him and was capable of assisting in his own defense.

[18][19] One of the most difficult decisions faced by King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng was whether to charge Haq with the death penalty.

Two of the victims, Layla Bush and Carol Goldman, publicly opposed charging the shooter with a capital crime, with both saying that death would be "too easy for him.

[31][32] Tammy Kaiser, a 33-year-old adult education director for the Federation was briefly hospitalized for injuries she received after dropping from a second-story window to escape the shooter.

[27] Kaiser and her daughter, Mia (who was 10 at the time of the shooting) later published a young adult fiction book, Diameter of the Bullet, based on the event.

He was baptized in December 2005 at the evangelical Word of Faith Center in Kennewick, but stopped attending church meetings a few months after his baptism.

The hatred and violence visited upon them today offends the values that drove their work and passion for improving their neighbors' lives."

[citation needed] Coincidentally, the July 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting occurred on the same day as the Mel Gibson DUI incident.

Sanford Brown, director of the council, called the shootings a "senseless and immoral action in which a sick individual targeted innocent people.

Cinnamon Stillwell, the Northern California Representative for conservative organization Campus Watch, wrote:News of the shooting rampage at Seattle's Jewish Federation building last month involved the usual avoidance of the term "terrorism."

Instead, the attack was labeled a hate crime and the perpetrator, Naveed Afzal Haq, just another in a long line of lone gunmen with a history of mental instability.

"[citation needed] While this may be true, trying to separate Haq's actions from the larger context of the war on terrorism is tunnel vision at its worst.

[45]Writing in Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger, Josh Feit and Brendan Kiley viewed the matter entirely differently: While Haq's violence exploded inside a political context — the Jewish Federation, Israel's war in Lebanon — his motivations were those of a frustrated man, who, according to [his friend] Renner, didn't fit in anywhere and felt persecuted and embarrassed by his parents' Pakistani background.

Haq is not a jihadi, nor a radical Islamist; his anti-Semitic rhetoric seems more like a veneer of politics on a man disturbed by feelings of inadequacy and rejection.