{"id":285849,"date":"2010-02-06T01:36:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T06:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-827355645292724573"},"modified":"2010-02-06T01:36:21","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T06:36:21","slug":"dearborn-police-continuing-probe-of-fbi-fatal-shooting-of-imam-in-oct-28-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/285849","title":{"rendered":"Dearborn Police Continuing Probe of FBI Fatal Shooting of Imam in Oct.\n28 Raid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Derek Grigsby of MECAWI at the demonstration outside the Dearborn Police Department when they released the autopsy report on the death of slain Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah on Feb. 1, 2010. (Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe)<\/a>
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Dearborn police continuing probe of FBI fatal shooting of Imam in Oct. 28 raid<\/p>\n

Tuesday, February 2, 2010
By Sean Delaney, Press & Guide Newspapers<\/p>\n

DEARBORN — Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a Muslim prayer leader accused of encouraging his followers to commit violence against the U.S. government, was shot 21 times during an FBI raid at a Dearborn warehouse last fall, according to an autopsy report released Monday.<\/p>\n

The autopsy was completed in November, but Dearborn police asked the Wayne County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office to delay releasing the results until now because it could have jeopardized their investigation into the Oct. 28 shooting.<\/p>\n

The investigation is likely to take several more weeks, Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said Monday. His department plans to submit its report to the state Attorney General’s Office and let him decide whether to pursue any possible charges against FBI agents involved in the raid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it clears them, whether they’re prosecuted, it’ll be up to the next level,\u201d Haddad said.<\/p>\n

FBI agents have said they were justified in shooting Abdullah because he had opened fire on the agents during a raid on a stolen-goods operation. An FBI dog was killed, prompting agents to return fire.<\/p>\n

The autopsy found Abdullah was hit twice in the chest, four times in the abdomen, twice in the groin, four times in the left hip and side, seven times in the left thigh, once in the scrotum and once in the back.<\/p>\n

Wayne County Medical Examiner Carl Schmidt said Abdullah, 53, died instantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least half the gunshot wounds affected his vital organs,\u201d Schmidt said, adding that he could not tell which specific bullet caused Abdullah\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Groups call incident targeted assassination<\/p>\n

Abayomi Azikiwe of the Michigan Emergency Committee against War and Injustice called Abdullah’s death \u201ca targeted assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever was responsible should be criminally prosecuted,\u201d Azikiwe said. \u201cAfter they shot him, they dumped him in a trailer like a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the report, an investigator from the medical examiner\u2019s office found Abdullah\u2019s body on the floor of a semi-trailer full of flat-screen TVs with his wrists handcuffed behind his back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our understanding from talking with different sources that he was dead at the actual crime scene, said Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. \u201cIf that indeed is the case, then we fail to understand why he would have been handcuffed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walid, along with a coalition of community leaders and Abdullah\u2019s supporters, have called for an independent investigation into the Oct. 28 shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still a lot of questions left unanswered,\u201d said Ron Scott, director of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality. \u201cAll we know right now is (Abdullah’s) body was shot up like Swiss cheese. People need to remember: This was a religious leader who was killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was the imam of a small mosque in Detroit that served mostly black Muslims. The FBI claims Abdullah was also spreading a radical anti-government ideology that called for an Islamic state within the United States.<\/p>\n

Abdullah’s family denies allegations<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father was only trying to help his community,\u201d said Abdullah’s son, Jamil Carswell. \u201cThere was absolutely no reason to shoot him 21 times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The autopsy didn’t detail the types or sizes of bullets removed from Abdullah’s body. The report documents the recovery of another bullet fragment and numerous small metallic fragments recovered from the pelvis. There were no gunpowder burns on the body, indicating the fatal shots weren’t fired from point blank range.<\/p>\n

Schmidt said his medical tests didn’t include checking whether there was gunpowder residue on the victim’s hands. \u201cThat would be something the police would do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Although Abdullah was not shot in the head, he suffered cuts and abrasions on his face. Several lacerations were also found on his hands, although Schmidt said he could not confirm whether the wounds were caused by the FBI dog he allegedly killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no distinct pattern left as when you have a good imprint of a dog, that doesn’t mean that some of his lacerations could not have been do to a dog,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n

The report concluded that the cause of Abdullah\u2019s death was multiple gunshot wounds.<\/p>\n

Many groups and organizations have demanded an independent investigation, saying the fatal shooting seemed excessive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe need to provide a thorough, rigorous and transparent accounting of the shooting here is plain,\u201d Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, wrote in a Jan. 13 letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, asking that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launch a probe into the shooting.<\/p>\n

Andrew Arena, special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI office, has said agents acted appropriately in the two-year investigation of Abdullah and during the raid. His office issued the following statement Monday regarding the autopsy results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’d like to ask people to wait for all the facts to come out to determine an overall reaction,\u201d said FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold. \u201cThe events that actually occurred in the warehouse have not been publicized.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of the shooting, the FBI said six men were arrested in the raid on the warehouse and two Detroit homes. The men were arrested on charges alleging illegal possession of firearms, trafficking in stolen goods and altering vehicle identification numbers. Three other suspects were arrested days later.<\/p>\n

For more on this story, see future editions of the Press & Guide.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Contact Staff Writer Sean Delaney at (734) 246-2702 or sdelaney@heritage.com.<\/p>\n

URL: http:\/\/www.pressandguide.com\/articles\/2010\/02\/02\/news\/doc4b68a13296fe6798495359.prt
<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Derek Grigsby of MECAWI at the demonstration outside the Dearborn Police Department when they released the autopsy report on the death of slain Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah on Feb. 1, 2010. (Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe)Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos Dearborn police continuing probe of FBI fatal shooting of Imam in Oct. 28 raid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}