Chapel Hill shooting prompts reflection

Disclaimer: This post was originally published in TechNews on Feb 21, 2015

I have been trying to write about the shooting at Chapel Hill for quite a while now, but each time I sat down to write about it, all I could do was relate the tragedy with myself. I lost my older brother to cancer four years ago and I still cannot overcome his death. The day my brother left us was the day my heart wanted to stop beating but I had to stay here and keep his memory alive. I know I’ll see him again one day, but still I miss him so much. I saw my brother suffering and I knew he is going to die but still, when he left us for good, we couldn’t accept the truth easily. We still sit and think about how it happened all of a sudden. So it’s hard to just imagine the pain the families of the Chapel Hill victims are going through, where someone else decided to kill them because they thought they didn’t deserve to live.

On the evening of Tuesday, February 10, something really unusual happened in a quiet neighborhood. Everything seemed to be quite okay until two women called 911 to report multiple gunshots and screams echoing through a condominium complex near the University of North Carolina (UNC).

By the time the police arrived, three people were dead. The victims were identified as Chapel Hill residents Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu Salha, 19, of Raleigh. They were young university students, muslims of Arab descent, and high achievers who regularly volunteered in the area.

A neighbor, a middle-aged white man, went missing on the same evening and was later under arrest when he turned himself in after the shooting in Chapel Hill, just outside the UNC campus and was charged with three counts of murder. The shooter, identified as Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, was being held in Durham County Jail, the Chapel Hill News and Observer newspaper and other news outlets said.

The victims’ families described it as a hate crime. The police said that the shooting appeared to have been motivated by “an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking,” but that they were investigating whether religious hatred had contributed to the killings. I just don’t understand how you can decide to kill someone just because you don’t like the way they look. You are not the Lord, you have no right to decide either who will live or die. When they never questioned you over your appearance, who are you to decide to end their lives over their appearance?

Mohammad Yousif Abu-Salha, the father of the two women who were killed, said that daughter Yusor Abu-Salha had told him that she and her husband had been harassed for their appearance by a neighbor who was wearing a gun on his belt. As mentioned in NY Times, “A friend of Yusor said she knew that Mr. Hicks had complained to the couple before about making noise and the use of parking spaces by their visitors, and that he once came to their door carrying a rifle. It is not clear whether they ever called the police about the altercations.”

Following the murder of three muslim students in the university town of Chapel Hill in North Carolina, many questioned the kind of coverage the gruesome incident received from mainstream US media in comparison to similar incidents involving members of other faiths. President Obama took four days to offer his and first lady Michelle Obama's condolences to the victims' loved ones, and stated, "We are all one American family."

I liked that President Obama added to his statement regarding the debate over the crime's motive that, "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.” But then again, are people really following the laws regarding the hate crime?

While #ChapelHillShooting was the top most trend around the world, many gathered under #MuslimLivesMatter to combat racism and the creeping scepter of Islamophobia.

Haya Barakat, cousin of one the victims Deah Barakat, tweeted that her cousin and his wife, her sister-in-law, were murdered for being Muslims, questioning growing racism/hate crime in the society. My question is whether anyone even knows what hate crime is and what its laws are? The FBI defines a hate crime as one with an added element of bias against a person's race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation. The agency says: "Hate itself is not a crime - and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties." Proving whether something is a hate crime can be extremely difficult because you have to show that someone committed the crime as he had certain beliefs regarding some issue.

This will be very prolonged and many people will forget this sooner or later, but their families will have to live with this pain forever. My humble request to everyone out there is that if you ever had any negative vibes against anything then try to work on it and talk it out to someone who can help you because you never know when that negative feeling will change into hatred and you might end up doing something which you will repent your entire life. Everything can be sorted out except for the death because when someone dies, everything comes to an end and that person can never come back, no matter how hard you try. If you have any questions regarding any religion then please attend an interfaith talk where you can talk it out and remove your misconception because it’s never too late.

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