Gunman’s hostage tells of Seattle shootings

NEW YORK – Dayna Klein was writing thank you notes and making telephone calls in her office at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle when she heard what sounded like bubble wrap popping.

When she also heard screaming and hurried footsteps, she got up from her desk and went to the office doorway and encountered a man holding a handgun.

As he pointed the gun at the pregnant Klein, she reflexively covered her stomach with her left arm. The bullet pierced her forearm and thigh – but missed her midsection.

She later called 911 and persuaded the gunman to speak with the operator, leading to his surrender. The July 28 shooting rampage – fueled partly by ethnic hatred, authorities say – left one woman dead and five others, including Klein, injured.

“I was trying to save the baby,” Klein, who is four months pregnant, said Tuesday in Manhattan on the eve of a scheduled appearance on NBC’s “Today” show. “I took a one-in-a-million chance and I was right.”

After she was shot, the gunman left Klein’s office, storming through other parts of the second floor, firing shots and threatening to kill anyone who called police.

With blood soaking her clothing, Klein, 37, crawled from the doorway to her desk and grabbed the phone. As she began pleading for help with the 911 operator, the gunman, wearing jeans and a green rugby shirt, returned.

” ‘Since you can’t follow … directions,’ ” Klein recalled him telling her, ” ‘now you’re the hostage.’ He put the gun up against my head and starting barking orders at me to tell the 911 operator.”

Klein said the gunman told her that he was a Muslim, and that Jews and the Bush administration needed to stop supporting Israel, particularly financially.

She said he also told her that the U.S. needed to end the Iraq conflict, and that he didn’t care about her, her unborn child or himself. Then he demanded to talk with someone from the CNN cable network.

Eventually, Klein, who is Jewish, persuaded the gunman to talk to the operator, who managed to talk the man into surrendering.

“He put the gun down in front of me and he held up the phone and said, ‘Now you tell her I put the gun down.’ He hung up on the 911 operator, he folded his hands behind his head and walked out of my office.”

Klein’s husband, Erez, learned about the shootings from a friend of the woman who was killed. He immediately drove to the hospital, traveling on highway shoulders and carpool lanes in rush-hour traffic.

As he drove, he called a friend and asked her to find any information on the Internet. The friend told him there had been a shooting and that a pregnant woman had been shot but was in good condition.

“When they said pregnant lady shot, I knew she was the only pregnant lady on the staff,” said Erez Klein, a wine buyer for Whole Foods Market.

Seattle police have arrested Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, of the Seattle area. He has been charged with aggravated murder in the death of Pamela Waechter, 58, director of the Jewish charity’s annual fundraising campaign.

Haq also faces five counts of attempted murder, kidnapping involving a teenage girl who was taken hostage briefly, burglary for allegedly entering a locked building and malicious harassment under Washington state’s hate-crime law.

Muhammad Ullah, a family friend and a senior member of a mosque founded in part by Haq’s father, described Haq as a quiet man with few friends. In a statement, the Islamic Center of the Tri-Cities offered condolences to the shooting victims.

Dayna Klein, who wears a brace on her arm for a few hours a day, is unsure whether she’ll ever regain full use of her left arm. She will undergo tests and is seeing specialists.

Klein also is unsure whether she will return to her job as director of major gifts at the federation: “My energy has gone into my medical treatment.”