Related: Chapel Hill Killings
I stand by my earlier observations, and I just want to clarify for the last time that all crimes are hate crimes -- except for the mass-murdering wars based on lies and the banker's love of loot to the point of fraud.
"Obama condemns slayings of 3 Muslim students" by Jonathan M. Katz and Richard Pérez-Peña, New York Times February 14, 2015
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — President Obama on Friday condemned the killing of three Muslim students in North Carolina as federal investigators said they had begun an inquiry into whether the killings were a hate crime.
That's more than a little ironic, isn't it?
“No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship,” Obama said. “As we saw with the overwhelming presence at the funeral of these young Americans, we are all one American family.”
The president’s comments — coming as the FBI, federal prosecutors, and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department announced they would look into the killings as a possible hate crime — followed growing pressure from Muslim groups across the country and around the world who have complained about a lack of attention to the brutal killings.
The three students were shot and killed in what the police initially described as a parking dispute with a middle-aged white neighbor who later turned himself in.
The case has quickly become an international cause.
That's why the Globe is covering it (and the fact that it is a case of citizen, not police, violence).
The government of Jordan — former home of the family of two of the victims — advised that it was closely watching the case, while the prime minister of Turkey rebuked Obama earlier in the day for not speaking out.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, also extended condolences to the victims’ families.
Muslim groups also organized a prayer outside the White House on Friday afternoon, one of more than 100 vigils that have been held, or are scheduled, in several countries, for the students — Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; her husband, Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. They were shot to death Tuesday outside a Chapel Hill apartment complex.
A project by Barakat to raise $20,000 to help refugees of the Syrian civil war had raised more than $300,000 by Friday morning.
Advocates for Muslims, civil rights groups, and the victims’ families said Friday that even if the FBI inquiry was about appearances, those appearances matter, sending a needed message that the federal government takes anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias seriously.
If the victims were Jewish it would be an antisemitic hate crime, and if the attacker were Arab or Muslim it would have been terrorist.
Fire damaged an Islamic Center in Houston on Friday, prompting speculation about a bias crime. And Muslim leaders voiced fears that a long-scheduled “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism,” will fan anti-Muslim sentiment.
Relatives of the Chapel Hill victims say the police have told them that all three victims had been shot in the head, and say they do not accept statements by the authorities that the fatal confrontation appeared to have begun, at least, as a neighborhood parking dispute.
“Everybody in both families — brothers, sisters, parents — believes wholeheartedly that this is a hate crime, so they feel validated that the FBI is looking into it,” said Linda Sarsour, who has acted as a spokeswoman for the families.
They don't know our FBI.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: “It comes at a critical time, where American Muslims feel under siege. This announcement, I believe it’s comforting for many people.”
I don't blame them because they are.
The FBI at first said that it would aid in the investigation by local and state authorities, but would not conduct its own investigation. When asked Wednesday about the shootings, a White House spokesman said, “We’re going to await the results of that investigation before we say anything.”
Then, late Thursday, the FBI issued a statement that federal authorities had “opened a parallel preliminary inquiry,” short of a full-fledged investigation, “to determine whether or not any federal laws were violated related to the case.”
Ripley Rand, the US attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, said his office was committed to fully investigating the case, adding it was important the Muslim community know that the government is taking the case seriously.
“I intend to review every piece of evidence involved in it to make sure that we do our part to see that justice is done,” Rand said. “This is obviously a matter of global concern.”
The pressure is really on!
A coalition of 150 rights and religious groups, most of them not directly involved in Muslim or Arab affairs, called Friday for a full-fledged federal inquiry.
It is unusual for the FBI to look into a case early on as the local and state authorities are doing so, but not unheard of. In December, after a hit-and-run driver killed a Somali-American teen in Kansas City, Mo., the FBI began an inquiry, as police charged a driver with murder.
Funeral services for the three victims drew thousands of mourners Thursday.
The man charged in this case, Craig Stephen Hicks, who lived in the same condo complex as the married couple, had a record of disputes with many people on the limited parking at the development, and Chapel Hill police have said that the shootings may have stemmed from another parking fight. But the victims’ families have insisted that the killings were motivated by a hatred of Muslims.
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About him:
"N.C. shooting suspect a man of contradictions" by Allen G. Breed, Associated Press February 16, 2015
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — If his Facebook page is indicative, Craig Hicks doesn’t hate Muslims. The online posts of the avowed atheist instead depict a man who despises religion itself but nevertheless seems to support an individual’s right to his own beliefs.
‘‘I hate Islam just as much as Christianity, but they have the right to worship in this country just as much as any others do,’’ the man now accused of killing three Muslim college students stated in one 2012 post over the proposed construction of a mosque near the World Trade Center site in New York.
Days after the shooting deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, a nuanced and sometimes contradictory portrait is emerging of the man charged in their slayings.
Police in Chapel Hill said they have yet to uncover any evidence that Hicks, 46, allegedly acted out of religious animus, though they are investigating the possibility. As a potential motive, they cited a dispute over parking spaces at the condo community where Hicks and two of the victims lived.
Hicks’s court-appointed lawyer, Stephen Freedman, said he could not comment on the case. Hicks was being held without bond.
In often publicly posted Facebook rants, Hicks was brazen about his disdain for all faiths. In one post regarding specific texts from the Koran, the Jewish Talmud, and the Bible about battling nonbelievers, he wrote: ‘‘I wish they would exterminate each other!’’
But he was just as passionate about personal freedom and liberty, championing an individual’s right to worship or not worship, legal abortion and gay marriage, and, perhaps most fervently, the right to own and bear arms. If he has a creed, it’s the Second Amendment.
Thanks for giving all the patriots a bad name, jerk.
‘‘I guess after the horrible tragedy early this week in Arizona, all Glock pistols will officially be labeled ‘assault weapons,’ ’’ he wrote following the January 2011 assassination attempt on US Representative Gabrielle Giffords. ‘‘While I never cared for Glocks personally, it stinks that anyone would blame a firearm rather than the operator of such firearm for such a terrible act.’’
“I think I’ll start blaming McDonalds for my weight problem, Christianity for the Ku Klux Klan, and Islam for terrorism,’’ he said. One post included a photo of a revolver and the warning: ‘‘If you are antigun, defriend me now!’’
Search warrants filed in court Friday listed a dozen firearms taken from Hicks’s condo unit, including four handguns, two shotguns, and six rifles — one a military-style AR-15 carbine — and a large cache of ammunition. That’s in addition to a pistol the suspect had with him when he turned himself in.
Hicks’s 20-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Sarah Hurley, said she shut him out of her life permanently years ago ‘‘for not only disrespecting the religious beliefs of others but bashing them on social media.’’ She verified that the Facebook page the Associated Press reviewed was Hicks’s.
He and Cynthia Hurley, who lives outside of Raleigh, were divorced about 17 years ago. She said that back then, Hicks’s favorite movie was ‘‘Falling Down,’’ the 1993 Michael Douglas film about a laid-off engineer who goes on a shooting rampage.
She described a man who showed her no compassion but didn’t recall him having any particular animosity toward Islam or other religions. Of Christianity, she said, ‘‘He went there and did that and chose not to.’’
An Illinois native, Hicks moved to North Carolina in 2005. He married again, and he and new wife, Karen, lived in her condo in a neighborhood of Chapel Hill. Online, he called Karen ‘‘my better half’’ and ‘‘the most wonderful woman in the world, she puts up with me.’’
In a news conference after her husband’s arrest, Karen Hicks claimed to be as baffled as anyone. She was adamant that the shootings stemmed from a long-simmering dispute over parking at the complex.
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NDUs:
"Man indicted on 3 counts of murder in N.C. deaths of Muslims" Associated Press February 17, 2015
DURHAM, N.C. — A grand jury in North Carolina on Monday indicted a man on three counts of murder in the shootings of three young Muslims in what authorities have said was a dispute over parking spaces.
The jury in Durham County handed up the indictments Monday for 46-year-old Craig Hicks.
Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were all found dead in their Chapel Hill condominium last week.
Hicks was their neighbor, and others said he had frequent concerns about where people parked in the complex near the University of North Carolina.
Chapel Hill police have said they have not uncovered any evidence that Hicks acted out of hatred for his neighbor’s Islam faith, but their investigation continues. The FBI is also investigating.
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Related(?):
"An Islamic school has been defaced with spray-painted anti-Muslim messages. Officials at the Islamic School of Rhode Island said racial slurs were painted Saturday night over the entrance. The school is for students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Orange paint covered the school’s doors with the words, ‘‘Now this is a hate crime,’’ “pigs,’’ and expletives referencing Mohammed. Hilmy Bakri, president of the school’s board of trustees, said the school has never been the subject of vandalism or any serious threats before. It opened in 2003."
Just wondering who might do such a thing.
This did fill me with chagrin:
Shooting Death of Three Muslims by White Man is a Hoax
Seems to be SOP these days rather than the exception like it used to be.
