Scores of protesters took to the streets of Pittsburgh on Tuesday to denounce a visit by US President Donald Trump in the wake of a mass shooting at a synagogue that left 11 people dead.
When Air Force One touched down at the airport outside Pittsburgh, Trump and Melania were not greeted by the usual phalanx of local officials that typically welcomes a visiting president, a reflection of controversy surrounding the visit.
Carrying signs that read "President Hate, Leave Our State!" and "Trump, Renounce White Nationalism Now," the protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue where the carnage unfolded Saturday.
Trump -- accompanied by his wife Melania, as well as his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who are Jewish -- was to light a candle for each of the 11 victims, killed during Shabbat services.
The controversial visit came after mourners crowded into nearby synagogues and joined street processions at the first funerals for some of the victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in modern US history.
The service for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, both in their 50s, was the first in honor of those killed in what was an apparent hate crime.
Services for 66-year-old doctor Jerry Rabinowitz and 71-year-old Daniel Stein followed in Pittsburgh, where scores of residents protested Trump's visit.
The president's trip to Pennsylvania came amid a mounting row over whether his fierce rhetoric at campaign rallies and on Twitter has helped stoke extremism ahead of next week's midterm elections.
The White House said Trump was coming to "express the support of the American people and to grieve with the Pittsburgh community." But local and religious leaders were divided on whether Trump should be there.
Barry Werber, 76, who said he survived the massacre by hiding in a dark storage closet as the gunman rampaged through the building, said he hoped Trump wouldn't visit, noting that the president has embraced the politically fraught label of "nationalist." Werber said the Nazis were nationalists.
"It's part of his program to instigate his base," Werber said, and "bigots are coming out of the woodwork."
Novy, 73, a retired college English professor, said she signed an open letter asking Trump not to come to Pittsburgh. "His language has encouraged hatred and fear of immigrants, which is part of the reason why these people were killed," she said.
Just minutes before the synagogue attack, the shooter apparently used social media to rage against HIAS, a Jewish organization that resettles refugees under contract with the U.S. government.
Suspect Robert Bowers is facing more than two dozen charges related to the bloodshed at the Tree of Life, which is located in the city's traditionally Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
The 46-six-year-old reportedly told police after his capture, "I just want to kill Jews," having claimed on social media that Jews were helping transport caravans of refugees from Central America into the United States, calling the migrants "invaders."
The caravans are a favorite target of the president, and he has called a group of several thousand impoverished mainly Honduran migrants currently attempting to walk north to the United States "an invasion."