There is a horrible triple murder being investigated this morning in North Carolina where three people from a Muslim family were allegedly murdered by Craig Stephen Hicks, 46. Some are speculating that Hicks’ strong atheist views may have been a factor after reading this “anti-theist” positions on the Internet. He has been described in some media account as a “radical atheist” though atheists have rarely engaged in violent acts against religious persons. UPDATE: Police have said that the dispute was not religiously motivated but a dispute over a parking space.
All three victims are from the same family and identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. From all accounts, the family was the epitome of a hard-working and successful American family. Barakat was a dental student at the University of North Carolina was a volunteer giving free dental care to Palestinian children. He also helped provide free dental supplies to 75 homeless people in downtown Durham. The recently married couple also organized a fundraiser to raise money for dental care for refugees from Syria. Barakat was going to travel to Turkey to help treat child refugees. His sister-in-law Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha had been studying for a degree at North Carolina State University in Architecture and Environmental Design.
All three were shot in the head.
Hicks posted anti-religious positions on the Internet and asked “why radical Christians and radical Muslims are so opposed to each others’ influence when they agree about so many ideological issues”? His page suggests that he is paralegal at Durham Technical Community College. He reported turned himself in.
News organizations have been focusing on Hicks’ anti-religious statements on the Internet as well as his photograph of a gun. However, anti-religious sentiments do not naturally lead to gunning down family’s of religious people (any more than stated religious beliefs or anti-atheist views naturally leads to killing atheists or agnostics). That does not mean that this was not a motivation in this case but we have little information at this point. Update: The police said that they have evidence of a long-standing parking space dispute.
Nothing is known of any prior interaction or mental disorders on the part of Hicks. Hicks also posted less threatening images, including photos with his wife.
Atheist leaders immediately condemned the murders. The numerous articles focusing on Hicks’ reported atheist views show no specific connection to this family or advocacy of anti-religious violence. However, it creates the possibility of a crime motivated by religious hostilities and is presumably being investigated as a possible hate crime. In the end, the classification of the murders as a hate crime are unlikely to materially affect the prosecution in the case if Hicks confessed to the murders. The question remains an insanity defense. As previously discussed, the insanity defense has been substantially curtailed in this country. I believe that North Carolina uses the M’Naghten Rule with the burden of proof on the defendant. The test is generally defined as meaning “the defendant was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease or deficiency of mind at the time of the alleged act as to be (1) incapable of knowing the nature and quality of his act, or (2) incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong with respect to such act.” State v. Mancuso, 364 S.E.2d 359 (1988) (relying on State v. Evangelista, 319 N.C. 152, 353 S.E.2d 375 (1987)).
Once invoked, the state can press for an examination, though it is often ordered by the Court sua sponte.
(a) If a defendant intends to raise the defense of insanity, the defendant must file a notice of the defendant’s intention to rely on the defense of insanity as provided in G.S. 15A-905(c) and, if the case is not subject to that section, within a reasonable time prior to trial. The court may for cause shown allow late filing of the notice or grant additional time to the parties to prepare for trial or make other appropriate orders.
(b) In cases not subject to the requirements of G.S. 15A-905(c), if a defendant intends to introduce expert testimony relating to a mental disease, defect, or other condition bearing upon the issue of whether the defendant had the mental state required for the offense charged, the defendant must within a reasonable time prior to trial file a notice of that intention. The court may for cause shown allow late filing of the notice or grant additional time to the parties to prepare for trial or make other appropriate orders.
(c) Upon motion of the defendant and with the consent of the State the court may conduct a hearing prior to the trial with regard to the defense of insanity at the time of the offense. If the court determines that the defendant has a valid defense of insanity with regard to any criminal charge, it may dismiss that charge, with prejudice, upon making a finding to that effect. The court’s denial of relief under this subsection is without prejudice to the defendant’s right to rely on the defense at trial. If the motion is denied, no reference to the hearing may be made at the trial, and recorded testimony or evidence taken at the hearing is not admissible as evidence at the trial. (1973, c. 1286, s. 1; 1977, c. 711, s. 25; 2004-154, s. 10.)
SOURCE: NBC
There is no doubt that this idiot is a hardcore atheist left wing progressive. Bases on his social media and his own words and deeds. Just like the leftist that murdered the two cops in NYC. Stop trying to pin it on someone or something else.
He is a criminal and a murderer and should be treated as such.
Also how handy for him to have his gun so close by, in his belt. Your gun, don’t leave home without it.
Jim22
Logic. If there is an almighty, and to be almighty there can only be one, then how can it be that it screwed up so bad in the religion department? Free will is what it is all about, along with common sense, observation, know thyself, nothing to excess, and a lot of other stuff no body affiliated with any personal supreme being figured out.
Deities should be put in their proper place(s), comic books, pantheons, second to common sense.
If it is all part of a divine plan then that plan will result in either the annihilation of all but one religion or the annihilation of all religion with man coming face to face with itself. Or, we have met the enemy and the enemy is us.
Sounds like he well could’ve been an Islamaphobe, which is far more common amongst those of the conservative persuasion.
Pogo
There’s a lot of that going on, religious groups, countries, etc., not policing their own. It’s not unique to Islam. Islam is just the biggest example out there that happens to be the most backward. The formula is the same for lots of religions, countries. It’s mine cuz my god said so. My god said it is alright to kill, subdue, etc. Me and my shadow….
“Nothing is known of any prior interaction or mental disorders on the part of Hicks.” -Jonathan Turley
http://www.newsobserver.com/welcome_page/?shf=/2015/02/11/4547742_chapel-hill-police-arrest-man.html
“…the women’s father, Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, who has a psychiatry practice in Clayton, said regardless of the precise trigger Tuesday night, Hicks’ underlying animosity toward Barakat and Abu-Salha was based on their religion and culture. Abu-Salha said police told him Hicks shot the three inside their apartment.
“It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” Abu-Salha said Wednesday morning. “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 said his daughter who lived next door to Hicks wore a Muslim head scarf and told her family a week ago that she had “a hateful neighbor.”
“Honest to God, she said, ‘He hates us for what we are and how we look,’” he said.
This is not a “hate crime”…..it is just a bunch of folks hanging around a parking spot.
Only a African American or a gay person can be a victim of a “hate crime”. It’s in the Constitution or something. Right between Abortion and Same Sex Marriage.
“Radical Atheist”. Kind of like Radical Baptist. Maybe he does not like radical Muslims. Maybe it is a story of radical vs. radical. Never the Twain shall meet.
As long as the terrorists are acting in the name of Islam, they are Muslim terrorists.
If other Muslims don’t like that, they can do something about it.
But I don’t see much of that going on. They either say nothing or write strongly worded articles.
At a minimum, they could close the offending mosques, and stop sending them money, but they won’t.
There’s very little evidence of mass opposition to Muslim terror acts.
I think the claim they oppose it is often taqiyya anyway.
In contrast, Nazi horrors were done in the name of Germany, not Christianity.
You continue with the false conflation, but that’s your tactic here, I gather.
Good luck with that.
Pogo:
Mainstream Muslims decry the terrorism of these fundamentalists. They insist that ISIS does not represent how the vast majority interpret and practice the Koran. So the terrorists may claim that they’re acting in the name of Islam, the vast majority disputes that claim.
I am not advocating that Nazis should be called “Christian Nazis” as long as you don’t insist upon ISIS being called “Muslim terrorists.” Neither religion ought to be blamed for the acts of a small percentage of its believers.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1541670396105857/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular
For anyone who wants to be in Chapel Hill in spirit tonight.
For every act of violence, there must be ten acts of love and kindness in return.
Yes, it’s wise to be skeptical of multiple news reports about a parking space dispute, but I’m equally as suspect of the accuracy of the ‘news’ reported by Pogo.
Another random thought.
An empty parking spot is like Atheism. There is nothing there.
Over a parking spot? I can see that happening in San Francisco…..do you know how HARD it is to find a parking spot there? They are like gold. Really. I’m not kidding.
But Raleigh?
I love the double standard. If some guy who just happens to be Christian or Tea Party does something horrific like this everyone immediately jumps on the bandwagon to bash Christianity or Tea Party even if there is no evidence that the motive was religious or political. The motive is usually not what the bandwagon wants it to be and devolves down to crazy or drugged or both.
However, we bend over backward to dismiss the idea that an Atheist could possibly kill in the name of Atheism. I find the idea of “organized” Atheism sort of ironic as well.
The parking spot issue makes the most sense. But that won’t stop people from bashing on Christianity anyway.
“So the murders were over a parking dispute”
The cause for the murders has not yet been established, Inspector Clouseau.
“…but for Christian Jew-hatred, the Holocaust could not have occurred.”
Anti-Semitism existed long before the Christians.
Atheism has had its share of virulent anti-semitism in Germany and Russia.
But Christians contributed, to be sure.
Nevertheless, Muslim terrorists are killing to advance the cause of Islam.
Nazis were killing to advance the cause of Germany.
Not Christianity.
So your main point fails, and it just becomes a standard anti-Christian swipe.
So the murders were over a parking dispute, not atheism and after all that anti atheist sentiment , lol.
Be that as it may, but for Christian Jew-hatred, the Holocaust could not have occurred.
What a senseless killing of three young people who were already making a loving and positive contribution to our community here in the Triangle and elsewhere.
There have been plenty of senseless murders over things like parking lots and other stupid things so it is possible that religion really didn’t play a part in this. Remember, a cop choked a guy to death in NY over selling loose cigarettes.
It’s also possible that this may be part of a clear and growing anti-Muslim trend in the country and worldwide. And both possibilities are terribly disturbing.
I believe that America is slowly and surely going insane.
The difference you are unwilling to say is that Muslim terrorists are killing to advance the cause of Islam.
Nazis, who were of different faiths or none at all, were killing to advance the cause of Germany.
But again, if your twisted illogic warms your heart, do go on.