Trump phoned Pittsburgh mayor moments after synagogue shooting to moan about death penalty

The mayor quickly ended the call and says he felt 'numb'

A few moments after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, President Donald Trump called the city’s mayor to offer his condolences—and to advocate for the death penalty.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto said the president veered straight into a policy discussion after offering thoughts and prayers to the city after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Mr Trump, according to Mr Peduto, said that the best way to prevent more bias-motivated hate crimes were to implement harsher death penalty legislation.

The mayor said he was astonished.

“I’m literally standing two blocks from 11 bodies right now. Really?” Mr Peduto told the newspaper, later adding he still felt numb and that the death penalty would not have prevented the shooting or brought the deceased victims back to life. Mr Peduto said he quickly ended the call after the death penalty discussion.

It should be noted that the phone call took place before the bomb squad finished their sweep of the synagogue, authorities identified Robert Bowers as the suspect, or victims’ families were notified of their deaths. Mr Peduto is also the mayor and does not hold any state-level legislative power.

This is not entirely out of character for Mr Trump. The president routinely lobbies in favour of the death penalty as his preferred punishment whether it’s for drugs, crime and mass shootings.

The most notable example is in the 1980s when Mr Trump published a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, who were five teenage black boys suspected of the brutal rape and attempted murder of a female jogger. Devoid of food, water and sleep, the boys were wrote confessions. Then, after 13 years in prison, DNA evidence absolved them from the crime they were falsely accused of and forced into confession.

For the most part, Mr Trump has gotten what he asked for as president. Since the start of his presidential term, death penalty cases has been on the uptick. Former President Barack Obama ordered reviews into capital punishment and lethal injections, almost effectively halting federal death penalty prosecutions in his final term, with the only capital prosecution authorised that of Dylann Roof. But in the last two years, Attorney General Jeff Sessions approved over a dozen of death penalty prosecutions.