A Hateful Crime, Likely Not A Hate Crime

"[CAIR is representing Nabra's family and] will monitor the development of the investigation to ensure a thorough examination of any possible bias aspects of the case."
Lena Masri, national litigation director, Council on American-Islamic Relations

"You can't just say, 'Oh, he didn't say anything against Islam, so no hate crime'."

"[This crime happened amid an] unprecedented rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes nationwide."

"We've been doing this for a lot of years, and there are not always overt statements of bias made during the crime."

"But we firmly believe that many of these crimes would not have occurred at all if the victims were not perceived as being Muslim."

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman, CAIR 

"Nothing indicates that the crime was motivated by hate or bias. Everyone looks at this crime and thinks that because the victims were participating in activities at a mosque, they assume that's what it was."
"It seems like a guy got enraged and just went after the victim who was closest to him."
Tawny Wright, spokeswoman, Fairfax Police Department

A motorist in Fairfax, Virginia has been accused and arrested and he will stand trial for the brutal murder of a young Muslim woman, 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen. She had been walking with a group of other young people when an enraged man driving a vehicle came across the group riding bicycles, walking, talking together companionably. The girls in the group were wearing traditional Muslim robes and head scarves.

Image via YouTube -- Nabra Hassanen

They were together in the early morning hours after attending the late-night Ramadan service at one of the largest mosques in the United States, the ADAMS Center. After their initial encounter, the motorist, a 22-year-old man from El Salvador whose presence in the United States is suspected as being illegal, came across the group again in a parking lot. An exchange of vituperative words took place, and the man began to chase the group of young people, holding a baseball bat.

They scattered and ran off rather than confront a man who was obviously in the throes of a psychotic rage. Nabra Hassanen appears to have been slower than her companions, and the man, now being held on a second-degree murder charge for whom no bail will be available, caught up to her, shoved her in his vehicle and drove off with her.

I wasn't  until later on Sunday that police discovered the girl's battered body beside a pond. An autopsy will determine whether she had been raped. Police are adamant to this point that they are investigating a crime of 'road rage'. No evidence exists that they can determine at this time that a hate crime was committed.

The accused, Darwin Martinez Torres, most certainly committed a heinous crime. His psychopathic rage was directed against the young people whose presence, for his own reasons, infuriated him. He was driven by his inner demons to pursue the young people with murderous intent. His intention bore atrocious fruit when he caught and abducted Nabra Hassanen. It was an odious crime.

A hate crime? Perhaps not so. In the latest statistics, the demographic most targeted for hate crimes is the LGBT community, followed by Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Latinos and Whites in descending order. There is, in addition, a sizeable gap between all of the demographics, but what is clear is that Jews, targeted mostly by Muslim incitement far more than by the far right, have been victimized by hate crimes in excess of Muslims.

Among the many Muslim community members that came out to pay their respects to Nabra Hassanen at her Wednesday funeral, her family and the Muslim community in mourning (understandably in shock) have been non-Muslims in the neighbourhood, among them members of the local Jewish community and synagogue-attendees.

CAIR's campaign to have this awful crime declared a hate crime against Muslims is yet another attempt on their part to portray the Muslim community as being under siege, to counter-weight the reality that Islamist fundamentalists are turning the world upside-down in their murderous rampage, with their declaration that Islam demands jihad.