BATON ROUGE- Just a day after 11 people were killed in the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond released a statement sending his condolences and calling for action.

“What happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania yesterday was beyond horrific. An anti-Semite came into a sacred place of worship and took the lives of 11 innocent worshipers. This is one of the deadliest attacks on the Jewish community in United States history, and thoughts and prayers from lawmakers are not enough to prevent these events from happening again. We cannot sit back and watch as bigots and racists take the lives of innocent Americans, and we must not stay silent while white nationalists continue to feel emboldened and empowered by the tacit approval of our highest form of leadership. At a time like this, it is clear that we must perform an audit of our core values, evaluate what we really stand for, and then take the necessary corrective steps to ending anti-Semitic and other racially charged acts of violence from becoming a common occurrence.”