Jersey shooting and politician comments [closed]

Question

Following the shooting at Jersey City, NJ, US.

see CNN report, I've already asked why kosher grocery is somehow important, but now politicians commented on the event

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop tweeted Tuesday that the initial investigation has led authorities to believe the shooters targeted the location.

and

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio added that officers have been deployed to protect the Jewish community in his city.

I'm not sure, but I've read that the crime committed was a drug dealing (that's why it started at cemetery in the first place).

So my question is as following:

Why politicians assert such things (hate crime if i'm not mistaken) about the event, that is supposedly a drug dealing with a following shooting?

Answer 1

Your quote seems quite clear to me:

the initial investigation has led authorities to believe the shooters targeted the location.

In other words, Fulop is asserting this because the authorities have found evidence to support the assertion.

The BBC's report on the shooting elaborates on Fulop's tweet:

Officials initially said they believed the shop was chosen at random and that they did not believe it was an act of terrorism.

But on Tuesday night, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said on Twitter that authorities "now believe the active shooters targeted the location they attacked".

So they've clearly found some evidence, perhaps in the suspects' van, that leads them to believe they targeted the grocery store deliberately. Note that despite de Blasio's comments, the authorities are not yet suggesting that the attack was a hate crime:

Officials have not elaborated on why they believe the location was targeted. They have also not commented further on whether the attack was driven by anti-Semitism.