{"id":47,"date":"2015-02-11T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T19:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/on-the-chapel-hill-shootings-first-reactions-plus-updates.html"},"modified":"2015-02-24T21:16:59","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T03:16:59","slug":"on-the-chapel-hill-shootings-first-reactions-plus-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/on-the-chapel-hill-shootings-first-reactions-plus-updates.html","title":{"rendered":"On the Chapel Hill shootings (first reactions) (plus updates)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(Update: \u00a0see more reflections here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For those in a cave, three people were shot in their apartment by a neighbor, in what\u2019s being described as a \u201cparking dispute.\u201d \u00a0The story is making national headlines because the victims, a married couple and a sibling, are Muslim, and visibly so, with headscarfs. \u00a0(Here\u2019s a Reuters article<\/a> but essentially similar reporting is everywhere.)<\/p>\n

Look at twitter: \u00a0people are outraged as much by their perception of the media treatment and public reaction as by the shootings themselves. \u00a0They want this to be acknowledged as a Hate Crime, and receive the same public sympathy as other Victim Groups get, with marches and the like. \u00a0And they want the killer to be labelled, in media reporting, as a terrorist.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we know he doesn\u2019t fit the narrative. \u00a0He\u2019s an atheist, and a self-described \u201canti-theist,\u201d not a fundamentalist Christian or a Southern good ol\u2019 boy. <\/p>\n

And here\u2019s what else doesn\u2019t fit the narrative. \u00a0He turned himself in.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t find much actual narrative on the shootings themselves. \u00a0Were the bodies discovered by family, and Hicks realized he had left his gun, with fingerprints, or some other incontrovertible at the crime scene (maybe even having watched CSI too often and figured he\u2019d be caught for the slightest slip-up), was too afraid or not street-smart enough to just flee, and figured he had no choice? \u00a0Or had he, himself, not just turned himself in, but alerted the police to the crime to begin with?<\/p>\n

How does rage \u2014 presumably a combination of this reported parking-lot dispute and a deeper suspicion influenced by their religion and ethnic origin \u2014 go from dirty looks, to a shouting match, to a shooting? \u00a0Information is scanty, but he is married and posted to facebook about a trip to Disney; there\u2019s nothing in the reporting I\u2019ve seen about a job. \u00a0Will news reports later emerge of a mental illness? <\/p>\n

Of course, regardless of his motive, three people are dead who should be just going about their day. \u00a0May they rest in peace.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0Here\u2019s some more, from a local news site<\/a>, with the full video of a news conference with the shooter\u2019s wife and her lawyers. \u00a0I don\u2019t usually like to watch news videos, but can you imagine being in her shoes? \u00a0Finding out that your husband killed three people? \u00a0She looks in shock; her world has been turned upside-down. \u00a0From references to \u201cmental health\u201d it seems the shooter may be planning on this as his defense, but, of course, the lawyers said in response to multiple questions, \u201cwe can\u2019t comment,\u201d and repeated multiple times, \u201cthe reason for this press conference is so that we can tell you that this shooting had nothing to do with the victims\u2019 religion, but just due to an ongoing parking issue with the condo association.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the accusations on twitter are still flying, peddling a narrative that no one cares about these victims because they\u2019re Muslim.<\/p>\n

(And don\u2019t twist this to say I have more sympathy for the killer\u2019s wife than the victims and their families!) <\/p>\n

More reports:<\/p>\n

According to this local TV report<\/a>, the wife was in the process of getting a divorce from the shooter. \u00a0And this report<\/a> says he was abrasive and confrontational about parking and noise with everyone in the complex. <\/p>\n

So is it a hate crime? \u00a0No way of knowing, but it\u2019s equally likely that the victims were killed because they were this man\u2019s neighbors, and their religion was irrelevant. \u00a0And some of the statements \u201cout there\u201d in news reports certainly make it appear as if some people and some groups are almost eager to label this a \u201chate crime\u201d in order to demand that the news media, and Americans in general, shut up about \u201cIslamic terrorism\u201d \u2014 but at this point, if you look at the twitter hashtag #ChapelHillShooting, it\u2019s mostly the same retweets over and over again, or in various foreign languages, so there\u2019s not really too many conclusions that can be drawn about it.<\/p>\n

(Side note: \u00a0there\u2019s an article in the Daily Beast <\/a>chronicling some of the prior run-ins with this man. \u00a0Of interest is one of the reasons the other is convinced it was a hate crime: \u00a0\u201cwe can\u2019t ignore that on the day of the shooting we saw wall-to-wall media coverage about the death of the American aid worker and ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller.\u201d \u00a0Does he mean to suggest that reporting on ISIS should be curtailed lest it impact Muslims in the United States?)<\/p>\n

But who was this man, this killer, that his anger about parking disputes (and apparently not just with this neighbor, but will all the neighbors \u2014 perhaps a more general frustration that the association wasn\u2019t more vigilant about enforcement?) would lead to murder? \u00a0Killings in the inner city are inevitably tied to gangs, and it\u2019s easy to say, \u201cwell, that\u2019s just how they were raised; they don\u2019t value human life\u201d when you read of a shooting over high-end sneakers or the like. \u00a0And when the mother says, \u201che was always such a good boy,\u201d it\u2019s easy to say that she had blinders on.<\/p>\n

Another update, from CNN<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[The shooter] had found a car belonging to one of the victims in what he claimed was his parking space, according to the law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then [the shooter] went to the victims\u2019 condo and shot all three people, the official said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhat he claimed was his parking space\u201d? \u00a0As a matter of understanding the facts, this suggests that there were not official assigned parking spots, but he believed he had a \u201cright\u201d to one particular spot.<\/p>\n

But of course \u2014 who kills over a parking spot? \u00a0The wife\u2019s attorney (not his attorney; he\u2019s got a public defender) says there are \u201cmental health issues\u201d involved. \u00a0Is this a genuine Voices in My Head-type mental illness? \u00a0Or was this just a very angry man, and only mentally ill in the way that childhood misbehavior is now labelled Conduct Disorder or Oppositional Defiant Disorder? <\/p>\n

And how does this happen? \u00a0How does a person get so angry that they\u2019re willing to take actions that will land them in jail for the rest of their lives? \u00a0This starts to read like an episode from Law and Order or CSI, in which the unexpected killer after multiple plot twists turns out to be an ordinary middle-class spouse or child or neighbor who confesses that they did the deed in a fit of rage over some perceived injustice \u2014 and it always seemed forced, to have the first three potential villians, with sensible motivations, be replaced by this helpless soul.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Update: \u00a0see more reflections here.) For those in a cave, three people were shot in their apartment by a neighbor, in what\u2019s being described as a \u201cparking dispute.\u201d \u00a0The story is making national headlines because the victims, a married couple and a sibling, are Muslim, and visibly so, with headscarfs. \u00a0(Here\u2019s a Reuters article but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,16],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anger","tag-islam"],"yoast_head":"\nOn the Chapel Hill shootings (first reactions) (plus updates)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(Update:  see more reflections here.)For those in a cave, three people were shot in their apartment by a neighbor, in what's being described as a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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