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Suspect questioned in NY slaying of Muslim imam

Video footage posted on YouTube showed dozens of men gathered near the site of the shooting, with one of them telling the crowd that it appeared to be a hate crime, even as police said the motive was still unknown.

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The gun was found in a wall of the suspect’s home in Brooklyn, along clothing he might have been wearing during the shooting.

Hooper said he could recall incidents in which an imam was pushed, called names or otherwise harassed.

“When we see two innocent men; two good men; two men of the cloth killed in such a violent manner, it pulls at all our hearts; all our souls”, de Blasio said, “and we too are focused on justice”. “We are just finding out ourselves”.

In sweltering heat, hundreds of Muslims from New York City – and some from North Jersey – gathered in a parking lot here Monday afternoon to demand justice after the slayings of a Queens imam and his assistant that roiled the faith-based community.

The man, later identified as Morel, initially talked with NYPD detectives at the 107th Precinct but then clammed up, a source said.

Akonjee, who had moved to the US from Bangladesh two years ago, was widely respected at the Al-Furqan Jame Mosque.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who attended a funeral for the two victims at Al-Furquan Jame Masjid mosque in Queens, said at a press conference Monday that the police department was going to pull together to help protect and reassure the city’s Muslim residents who he said might be anxious.

The police released video of the shooting and a sketch of the suspect.

The man was arrested by officers from the NYPD Regional Fugitive Task Force, who were carrying out a “brief surveillance” of the suspect in Queens when he rammed an police auto.

“There is nothing in the preliminary investigation that would indicate they were targeted due to their faith”, NYPD Deputy Inspector Henry Sautner told reporters.

Sources tell CBS2 the man was initially taken into custody after ramming his vehicle into an unmarked police auto in Brooklyn at around 11 p.m. Sunday night. Boyce said investigators were searching his home on Monday night.

“I have never felt this kind of tension”, said Nizam Uddin, 57, a taxi driver who said he knew both the cleric and his associate. “Things like that, but nothing of this nature, nothing where people were killed”, he said.

Imam Maulama Akonjee was gunned down in broad daylight, along with his friend, Thara Uddin.

The same people who had worshipped five times a day at Akonjee’s Al-Furqan Jame Masjid, a two-story house turned into a mosque, came to get a last look at their imam’s closed coffin, draped in fabric of gold and green and resting in the back of a hearse.

Awad also joined calls by NY officials to stand up against anti-Muslim political rhetoric.

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The Daily News reports many Muslims in the city believe the victims were targeted due to their faith. “All of this hatred being propagated, especially by Donald Trump, it puts us at risk”.

Suspect detained in murder of New York Imam