Imam Maulama Akonjee, 55, and Thara Uddin, 65, were shot in the back of the head in broad daylight as they left a mosque Saturday in Ozone Park.
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When police approached his home in East New York, the suspect evaded officers in a vehicle and struck a police auto in the process.
The suspect, Oscar Morel, 35, was originally arrested Sunday night on charges related to a hit-and-run accident, NYPD Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce said at a press conference. “He was placed under arrest without any further incident”.
Morel’s motives for the killings are unknown.
“Right now we can’t explain why he was there”, Boyce said. He was there just prior to (the shooting).
The shooting “is not what America is about”, said “We blame Donald Trump for this”.
Minutes after the two Muslim men were shot, Morel, who was driving a black GMC Trailblazer, hit a bicyclist at the intersection of Pine Street and Pitkin Avenue, the Wall Street Journal reported. About 10 minutes later, a auto matching that description hit a cyclist in the nearby borough of Brooklyn. However, the sources tell the Daily News they have not ruled out other motives, including it being a hate crime.
A Brooklyn man has been charged for the shooting deaths of an imam and his assistant, police said Monday night.
“This is nothing like him”. I don’t know what happened.
A year ago the New York Times reported that hate crimes against US Muslims and mosques tripled in the wake of attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.
“It doesn’t matter what faith you come from, it doesn’t matter where you live in this city, as one, we feel this pain”, the mayor said to the 1,000 people in attendance. He was charged on Monday night.
Several speakers said they believed the victims were targeted due to their religion.
After the ceremony, part of the crowd marched to the spot where the shooting took place.
Brown said Tuesday that investigators might conclude that the shooting was a hate crime, but he added that the case will be “vigorously prosecuted” regardless.
The killings have stoked fear and anger in the largely Bangladeshi Muslim community in Queens and Brooklyn, where residents have described harassment in recent months by people who shouted anti-Muslim epithets.
Morel’s brother, Alvin Morel, told the New York Post that his brother felt a temporary hatred of Muslims after 9/11 but that he now “definitely has no hate for the Muslims”.
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Community leaders, who appeared to be rattled by the rising Islamophobia, slammed “xenophobic statements” made against Muslims in speeches by “politicians and candidates seeking the highest office in the land” – a clear reference to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
