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Friday, March 29, 2024

Judge breaks silence after son fatally shot

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Judge breaks silence after son fatally shot
Judge breaks silence after son fatally shot

[NFA] A federal judge whose son was killed and husband wounded in a shooting by a disgruntled lawyer at her New Jersey home broke her silence on Monday, calling for measures to keep personal information of jurists private.

This report produced by Jillian Kitchener.

"While my husband is still in the hospital recovering from multiple surgeries, we are living every parent’s worst nightmare..." In an intensely personal statement - federal judge Esther Salas spoke out, Monday, for the first time since her 20-year-old son was killed and her husband wounded in a shooting by a disgruntled lawyer at her New Jersey home two weeks ago.

In this nine-minute YouTube video, Salas described the last time she saw her son Daniel - just moments before he was shot.

"And we were chatting as we always do.

And Daniel said 'Mom, let’s keep talking, I love talking to you, Mom.'

It was at that exact moment that the doorbell rang, and Daniel looked at me and said, 'Who is that?'... I heard the sound of bullets... I later learned that this monster, who had a FedEx package in his hand, opened fire." While grieving the loss of her only child, Judge Salas - the first Latina to serve on the District Court of New Jersey - is calling for measures to keep personal information of jurists private.

"In my case, this monster knew where I lived and what church we attended… My son’s death cannot be in vain, which is why I am begging those in power to do something to help my brothers and sisters on the bench.” While the motive for the shooting remained unclear, the male suspect once had a case before the judge and had published material online with misogynistic and racist remarks deriding her ethnicity and career.

He was found dead a day after the shooting in an apparent suicide.

"...We can’t just sit back and wait for another tragedy to strike.”

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