{"id":67509,"date":"2016-08-17T14:37:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T18:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=67509"},"modified":"2016-08-17T14:37:41","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T18:37:41","slug":"imam-murdered-in-queens-ny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=67509","title":{"rendered":"Imam murdered in Queens, NY"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?attachment_id=67510\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-67510\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Oscar-Morel-262x333.jpg\" alt=\"Oscar Morel\" width=\"262\" height=\"333\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-67510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Oscar-Morel-262x333.jpg 262w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Oscar-Morel-236x300.jpg 236w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Oscar-Morel.jpg 293w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 262px) 100vw, 262px\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The other day, Imam Maulama Akonjee and Thara Uddin were murdered by a lone gunman on the streets of Queens, New York. Before the bodies were cold,  the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) were blaming Donald Trump and his bombastic rhetoric against Muslims for the murder. It turns out that the murderer was this fellow, Oscar Morel, he doesn&#8217;t appear to be a Trump supporter. From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/oscar-morel-imam-maulama-akonjee-queens-murder-thara-uddin-new-york-490884\">Newsweek<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The defendant ran up behind both of them and pumped numerous bullets into them striking them both in the head &#8230; leaving them lying in the street mortally wounded,&#8221; [prosecutor Peter McCormack] said.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities said on Tuesday that the suspect&#8217;s motive remained unclear, and the possibility it was a hate crime was one theory being explored.<\/p>\n<p>Morel, from the borough of Brooklyn, appeared calm and spoke little during his brief appearance. He agreed that surveillance video showed him at the scene of the murders earlier on Saturday, but denied being the killer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know why he killed the pair but neither <a href=\"http:\/\/www.siasat.com\/news\/suspected-us-imam-killer-hispanic-charged-murder-1002593\/\">does CAIR<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Muslim leaders chanted \u201cWe want justice\u201d and sought a stepped up security including installation of CCTV cameras outside mosques in the area following the incident, that has sent a shockwave among the Bangladeshi community in the neighbourhood and prompted concerns over growing Islamophobia.<\/p>\n<p>The leaders slammed \u201cxenophobic statements\u201d made against the community in speeches by \u201cpoliticians and candidates seeking the highest office in the land\u201d, in a clear reference to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If rhetoric caused murders, all of us white people would be dead from all of the hate speech in recent months. But, I&#8217;m pretty sure that Morel wasn&#8217;t influenced by political speech. He may use it as an excuse in the coming months, but that doesn&#8217;t make it true. I&#8217;m still wondering how Morel got a rusty old .38 Special pistol in Queens. Isn&#8217;t that illegal there?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day, Imam Maulama Akonjee and Thara Uddin were murdered by a lone gunman on &hellip; <a title=\"Imam murdered in Queens, NY\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=67509\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Imam murdered in Queens, NY<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}