Following the gunning down of three Muslim students in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill on Tuesday night, community groups are demanding that the killings be investigated as a hate crime even as initial police investigation suggested the shootings stemmed from “an ongoing neighbour dispute over parking”.
Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were shot in the head in execution style. The suspect, Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, who turned himself in to the police, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
The shootings, and initial suggestions that the cause may be a parking dispute, have sparked widespread condemnation among members of the community, with many taking to the Twitter to allege anti-Muslim bias.
All three victims were US-born. Barakat, a Syrian-American and a second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had married Yusor in December.
Mohammad Abu-Salha, whose two daughters were among the victims, said Yusor and her husband had disagreements with suspect Hicks. He believes this was due to the suspect’s underlying animosity based on religion and culture. He said his daughters were “dressed in Muslim attire”.