A horrifying event in Kansas City, Missouri.
Friends of a Muslim teenager who was run down and killed in a crash that’s being investigated as a possible hate crime said they had been alarmed in recent weeks by someone driving around with anti-Islamic messages painted on a vehicle.
Police say they don’t know if there’s any connection.
Ahmed H. Aden, 34, of Kansas City, was charged Friday in Jackson County with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the crash that fatally injured 15-year-old Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein on Thursday night at the center. Funeral services for Abdisamad are scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City.
According to a probable cause statement, Aden was driving the sport utility vehicle that hit the teen as the boy got into a car Thursday evening. A witness reported seeing the teen “fly through the air” before the SUV ran over him. The teen’s legs were nearly severed, and he died in a hospital of his wounds.
But Aden was perhaps not just a random guy who happened to be driving past.
In the weeks before the crash, worshippers said they saw a black SUV painted with threatening messages at the center and cruising around a nearby shopping area. One of the messages was “Islam Is Worse Than Ebola,” said Mohamed Ahmed, 13, of Kansas City.
“I would have thought the police would have taken care of it, but they didn’t,” he said.
Mohamed Farah, a 50-year-old friend of the boy’s family, said he called police more than once in October about a suspicious man who was coming around the center.
The driver’s behavior was not…random.
Court documents said Aden crashed the SUV and got out of the vehicle with a knife. Occupants of the car told officers they followed Aden, and they pointed him out to police. One witness said the suspect swung what appeared to be a baseball bat at people, and another witness reported that Aden pulled out a handgun and said to “Stay there” as he tried to get away.
Aden initially told authorities that he lost control of his vehicle and that there was an accident. He later said he struck the teen because he thought he looked like a man who had threatened him several days earlier, the probable cause statement said.
Federal agents are assisting in the investigation and “also have opened this matter as a federal civil rights investigation as a potential hate crimes violation,” according to FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton. Patton said she couldn’t release any information on why the case could be considered a hate crime.
Horrible.
The names are confusing to me. Could this be a *sectarian* hate crime? Or is it just Islam in general that’s somebody’s problem?
Yeah, the fact the suspect’s first name is Ahmed does raise questions. This article has a photo of Aden, and includes mention he had a conviction for drunk driving in 2008.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article4299890.html
My initial guess is that he’s an African-American whose parents gave him what they thought of as an African sounding name, not realising it’s a common Muslim name. However he could also be from a Muslim background, but became an apostate.
“…African-American whose parents gave him what they thought of as an African sounding name…”
um, what?
I live in Kansas City and I’m familiar with this story. Both the victim and suspect in this case are immigrants from Somalia. The suspect was well known within the local community of Somali immigrants for making threats against Muslims in that community. The news reports I’ve read have said the suspect is Christian.
Ah, thank you for that.
God how horrible.