Murder Victim. Born Aaron Halberstam, the son of Devorah Halberstam, he was a yeshiva scholar studying under the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson. In March 1994, Halbertsam and a dozen classmates had been visiting the Rebbe in a Manhattan hospital before taking a van back to their homes in Brooklyn. On the entrance ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge, a sedan driven by a single gunman equipped with a submachine gun, two 9mm handguns, and a shotgun pursued the van across the bridge. In one burst of gunfire, the passenger side of the van was strafed, three of the students were hit and the rear windows blown out. The van stopped briefly, and two of the students climbed out as they tried to assess casualties. They were fired upon again, the driver's side of the van was raked. The van then drove off, leaving the two students on the bridge where they were later picked up by an emergency medical technician. The gunman followed the van, more shots were fired at the passenger side of the van before it swerved off the bridge at the Cadman Plaza exit, escaping the sedan. Of the fourteen students in the van, Ari Halbertsam and Nachum Sosonkin, had been shot in the head. Two other students, Yaakov Schapiro and Levi Wilhelm suffered wounds to the chest and abdomen. All the victims were taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, where as a result of massive brain damage, Halberstam was pronounced dead five days after the shooting. His funeral attracted more than 10,000 mourners. Nine months after his death, Halberstam's murderer, a Lebanese national who was in the country illegally, was convicted on one count of murder and fourteen counts of attempted murder and one count of criminal use of a firearm and was sentenced to life in prison. The Halberstam family requested that the attack be re-classified as an act of terrorism. The case was reopened in August 1999, resulting in the Justice Department formally reclassifying the incident as an act of terrorism. The Ari Halberstam Memorial Fund was established in 1994. The fund helps give educational scholarships to underprivileged students. The Jewish Children's Museum was dedicated to the memory of Ari Halberstam. The entrance ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge has been named The Ari Halberstam Memorial Ramp in his honor.