Shaima Alawadi's death looks less like a hate crime, and more like domestic violence
-- or, at least, an attack by someone she knew.
Her brother says that she was planning to divorce her husband, and that the husband knew it. Partially filled out divorce papers were found in her car.
There were also family problems involving her daughter, who was objecting to a forced marriage to a cousin, and had recently been caught doing something with another guy inside a car.
The most curious (and underreported) fact, IMHO, is that the daughter was in the home while the attack occurred -- and didn't hear it. She says that she heard the sound of glass breaking -- but thought it was a plate. So she didn't find her mother till ten minutes later.
How could she hear the sound of the breaking glass, and yet not hear the sound of any struggle? A stranger broke into the house and the mother said nothing? Didn't shout or cry or make any noise while the stranger hit her at least 6 times with a heavy object? And the mother hit the floor and even that didn't make any noise for the daughter to hear? The same girl who thought she'd heard a plate break couldn't hear ANYTHING else?
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/07/shaima_alawadis_murder_hate_crime_or_honor_killing/singleton/
“There are a lot of anti-Islamic groups and know-nothings here,” says California State University professor Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism in San Bernardino. Nonetheless, he and other hate-crime monitors are skeptical of some of the alleged details of Alawadi’s death. “Why are the police so quick to say it is an isolated incident? That suggests to me they are looking at other motives. There is the possibility this could be some sort of personal attack or revenge attack.” Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups nationwide, says that when he first heard about the threatening notes, “I raised an eyebrow. It’s too perfect. It’s highly unusual to have notes that spell out the motive on paper.” As for the crime itself, Potok says, “It is quite unusual to invade someone’s home, especially a woman, and violently beat her to death in the dining room.”
Indeed, in the days after her death several revelations called the hate-crime allegation into question. On April 4, an affidavit for a search warrant about the murder was “accidentally released,” according to the New York Times. The San Diego Union-Tribune, which first received the document, claimed it shows a “family in turmoil and cast doubt on the likelihood that her slaying was a hate crime.” Alawadi was said to be planning on leaving her husband, based on blank divorce papers found in her vehicle. Last November, police investigating reports of two people possibly having sex in a car found Fatima with a 21-year-old man. After her mother was called to pick her up, Fatima allegedly jumped out of the moving car at 35 mph. While being treated at a hospital for her injuries the court records state, “Police were informed by paramedics and hospital staff that Fatima Alhimidi said she was being forced to marry her cousin and did not want to do so she jumped out of the vehicle.”
The document also mentions “a neighbor reported seeing a skinny dark-skinned male running west from the area of Alawadi’s house” on the morning of the murder. According to the affidavit, as of March 27, the police had not confirmed the whereabouts of Kassim Alhimidi, Alawadi’s husband, at the time of the murder. And curiously, “a handwritten note was located at the scene that the family denied seeing before.”
Yet some in the community are still skeptical because there is no suspect, motive or murder weapon. Hanif Mohebi, director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says, “There are definitely questions that are brought up by the article, but we should not jump to a conclusion unless there is a real fact provided. Our community is not immune to these issues.”
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