Father Of Two Of The Victims Calls It A “Hate Crime”!
Mohammad Abu-Salha, whose two daughters were among the victims, said Yusor and her husband had had disagreements before with Hicks and that he believes the alleged gunman’s underlying animosity toward the couple was based on their religion and culture.
CHAPPEL HILL – The mayor of Chapel Hill, N.C., said Wednesday that the college town has been “rocked” by the shooting deaths of three Muslim students that the father of two of the victims calls a “hate crime.”
The fatal shootings have sparked condemnation from a national Muslim civil liberties group and triggered a Twitter uproar over allegations of anti-Muslim bias.
The victims, all shot in the head, were identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, and his wife, Yusor Mohammad, 21, of Chapel Hill, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh, police said. The two female victims were sisters.
Barakat, a Syrian-American and a second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Yusor Mohammad were married in late December.
The couple traveled to Turkey last year to provide free dental care to students, according to a Facebook page created in their memory by friends.
Muneeb Mustafa, 23, of Cary, said he attended the same Raleigh mosque as Barakat.
“He was a completely genuine guy. Loving, caring, friendly, smart,” Mustafa said. “He was an ideal human being. He was a role model.”
Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, who turned himself in to authorities, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the fatal shootings Tuesday afternoon at an apartment building in Chapel Hill.
Police spokesman Lt. Joshua Mecimore said a preliminary investigation indicates the crime was “motivated by an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking” and that Hicks, who lives in the complex, is cooperating with investigators, according to newsobserver.com.
Hicks’ profile on Facebook reads “Atheists for Equality” and he frequently posted quotes critical of religion. Three weeks ago, he posted a photo of a .38-caliber revolver that he said was loaded and belonged to him.
“Yes, that is 1 pound 5.1 ounces for my loaded 38 revolver, its holster, and five extra rounds in a speedloader,” the entry said.
Neighbor Samantha Maness said suspect Hicks “complained about noise and parking. So I wasn’t extremely surprised” when he was charged.
“Anytime that I saw him or saw interaction with him or friends or anyone in the parking lot or myself, he was angry,” she said. “He was very angry, anytime I saw him.”
Hicks, wearing a jail jumpsuit, made a brief appearance in Durham County District Court Wednesday morning where he asked for a public defender. He was denied bail and informed that the next hearing would be held March 4, newsobserver.com reports.
Local politicians and police moved quickly to try to reassure the public as some family members charged that anti-Muslim feelings were behind the killings and Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council of American Islamic Relations, called on authorities to determine as quickly as possible whether religion was a factor in the killings.
“Our community has been rocked by a horrible crime with the shootings of three young people,” said Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt. He said police were using “all available resources to determine whether hate was a motivating factor.”
“All we know for certain at this time is that it was a senseless and tragic act surrounding a long-standing dispute,” he said.
“I share strong feelings of outrage and shock with my fellow citizens and university students — as well as concerned people everywhere,” he added. “We do not know whether anti-Muslim bias played a role in this crime, but I do recognize the fear that members of our community may feel. Chapel Hill is a place for everyone, a place where Muslim lives matter.”
Mohammad Abu-Salha, whose two daughters were among the victims, said Yusor and her husband had had disagreements before with Hicks and that he believes the alleged gunman’s underlying animosity toward the couple was based on their religion and culture.
“This has all the signs. It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” Abu-Salha tells newsobserver.com. “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not know he would go this far.”
Abu-Salha, who has a psychiatry practice in Clayton, N.C., also said his daughter, in a reference to Hicks, told her family a week ago that she had “a hateful neighbor.”
The killings triggered an outcry overnight on Twitter — under the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter — by those who feel the victims were marked by their religion.
Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue, in a statement, called the killings a “senseless and tragic act” and said police are still probing what happened.
“We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case,” he added.
