Manchester, CT – Orthodox Jew Among Those Killed At Connecticut Beer Factory

Manchester, CT – A 50-year-old Stamford man was among the nine people killed during a shooting rampage at a Manchester beer distributor Tuesday morning.

Louis Felder, (Yehuda Lieb ben Moishe Yitzchok), a Pepper Ridge Road resident and member of the city’s Orthodox Jewish community, worked at Hartford Distributors. He was killed when a 34-year-old driver went on a killing spree before committing suicide, his rabbi and neighbors confirmed Tuesday evening.

The state medical examiner’s office on Tuesday would not release information about the deaths in the Manchester shooting, instead referring questions to police. Manchester authorities did not return phone messages Tuesday, and they had yet not released names of the victims.

Felder, who in 1999 founded a warehouse management system and consulting business, was the operations director at Hartford Distributors, according to Journal Inquirer newspaper reports of an expansion planned by the company.

Outside his Pepper Ridge Road home Tuesday, more than two dozen cars were parked along the sidewalk as several people gathered on his front lawn. His wife, Helen, wept as relatives and friends consoled her. Their son, Gabriel, said the family did not want to comment on the death so soon.

Rabbi Elly Krimsky, of Young Israel of Stamford, an Orthodox synagogue on Oaklawn Avenue, said he heard of the death while working in New York. He got a call from a colleague at Agudath Sholom, the city’s other Orthodox synagogue. He came straight back to Stamford when he was told Felder had been killed.

Now he is helping the family plan for Felder’s funeral.

“He was full of life and always smiling,” Krimsky said.

Neighbors described Louis Felder as down-to-earth and a reliable father of two teenage daughters and a son.

Eve Horowitz, who lived next door to Felder for the past 20 years, said words could not describe his personality.

“We’re all in shock,” she said.

David Horowitz recalled seeing Felder play basketball with his friends and children every Saturday, when Orthodox Jews observe Shabbat and cannot use electricity or automobiles.

“He was a real good neighbor, a real gentlemen,” Horowitz said.

Eve Horowitz said she found out something had happened to Felder when she first heard news reports of the Manchester killing spree and asked her husband whether it was the same beer distributor where Felder worked.

When she got home, cars lined the sidewalk outside Felder’s home.

“I knew something was wrong,” Eve Horowitz said.

VIN News has learned that Chesed Shel Emes is on the scene for the post cleanup of the nifter, they are in contact with the Medical Examiner’s office trying to prevent an autopsy.