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
Pogo, your own words tell the tale. No need for me to misrepresent what you say.
I just find it hilarious that the backlash came from an atheist leftist who watches Rachel Maddow and reads the Huffington Post.
If Inga wasn’t misrepresenting what other people write, she’d only post once a month.
News media stoked the flames at the start by headlining the victims first and foremost as Muslims. Not “3 Murdered in Raleigh” in the absence of known motive.
There were days, weeks, that sober, rational media could have waited for a police investigation to determine a motive.
But no, some people have almost been hoping for a violent “backlash” against Muslims that has never materialized even 13 years after 9/11/2001. But Christians and secular humanists have never obliged, and the backlash has lived on in imagination.
So in the spirit of Brian Williams and Dan Rather, they settled for just making stuff up, not obviously, but by misdirection. Hey, it drives ratings, so what’s the problem, right?
AliciaM – fairness will kick in when we see the headline “The Lutherans killed”
“At least we aren’t reading people cheering that three more Muslims just got sent home…”
Max, that’s Islam:
After the November “massacre by two Palestinian terrorists of four Jews at prayer in a Jerusalem synagogue …the Palestinian reaction has ranged from reluctant condemnation to outright celebration. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, reportedly after being pressed by Secretary of State John Kerry , condemned the attack—even as he cited Israeli “provocative acts.” Less equivocal was Mr. Abbas’s adviser on religious affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who said of the terrorists: “We are behind them. The leadership is with them.” Palestinians cheered in the streets of Gaza.“
Max, I love how they pretend to care about what happens to Muslims. Pogo has them all being terrorist sympathizers if you listen to what he writes about them daily.
“Funny how you embrace skepticism and patience — “The cause for the murders has not yet been established” — and then demonize “extremist” Atheism”
I am merely holding the leftists to their own standards (see Alinsky, Rule 4).
Since this is really about a parking space, I would like the whole article corrected and get back to the parking space issue.
Richard
“Pogo, I’m not sure what you expect most people living in peace to do. I don’t believe my neighbors, for example, have any more ability to affect the conduct of ISIS or other terrorist groups than you do.”
1. Stop raising and sending money to them.
2. Shut down the mosques where terror is preached. In the US.
In my little town in Minnesota, 2 Somali Muslim women were convicted of raising money to send to terrorists. Young men from their community went their to fight for Muslim terrorists.
When they quit doing that crap in a loud and obvious way, I’ll believe it.
Annie,
At least we aren’t reading people cheering that three more Muslims just got sent home…
A voice from the grave…
https://twitter.com/arabprodigy30/status/560433379796344832
DBQ:
“An empty parking spot is like Atheism. There is nothing there.”
I’ll take exquisite nothingness (nature is not nothing, by the way) over a universe saturated with a petty, clearly manmade sky-tyrant.
And it’s been said that Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.
Pogo:
Funny how you embrace skepticism and patience — “The cause for the murders has not yet been established” — and then demonize “extremist” Atheism that, here in reality, simply applies that same skeptical rationale to the unproved existence of a sky-dictator.
Atheism = not accepting the unsubstantiated claims of any and all theisms. It doesn’t dictate behavior or force a uniform worldview.
So for you to remain consistent, we should now organize and speak out against parking spots: because one may have inspired this lunatic.
As one would expect, District Attorney Roger Echols is not ruling anything out at this point:
http://www.wral.com/prosecutor-not-ruling-out-hate-crime-in-triple-chapel-hill-shooting/14439969/
District Attorney Roger Echols echoed comments earlier Wednesday by Chapel Hill’s police chief, who said investigators “will exhaust every lead” to determine if bias was a motive in the slayings of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife, Yusor Mohammad, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.
Police were called shortly after 5 p.m. to Finley Forest condominiums on Summerwalk Circle in Durham County, where the victims were found shot in the head.
According to two 911 calls released Wednesday afternoon, callers reported hearing multiple gunshots.
“I heard about eight shots go off in an apartment,” one caller said. “About three girls – more than one girl screaming – and then there was nothing. Then I heard about three more shots go off.”
Eleven shots. Eleven.
The early morning headline at WAPO was “3 Young Muslims Killed”.
I found this quite interesting since the media doesn’t report what it considers extraneous characteristics, going so far as to refer to many suspects as “youths” and omit race / religion when a member of a designated victim group. So why the identification in this case?
Why were they in such a hurry they forgot their own rules? I suspect it’s a chance to regain the credibility they wasted predicting 38 of the last zero “backlashes”.
Undoubtedly he is a gun nut Islamaphobe.
Oh and Rachael Maddow and that dummy who wears tampon earrings!
I blame Jon Stewart, MSNBC and Elizabeth Warren.
Pogo, I’m not sure what you expect most people living in peace to do. I don’t believe my neighbors, for example, have any more ability to affect the conduct of ISIS or other terrorist groups than you do.
issac, Logic? I was expecting more after reading that first word. You seem to think you know what an almighty being has in plan or if its plan can be judged as a screw up. Again, I ask, how can you possibly know this?