Authorities in St. Louis now are saying they are investigating as a possible hate crime an attack that happened only miles from the Ferguson, Missouri, streets where violence has run rampant in the weeks and months since a white police officer shot and killed black, 290-pound teenager Michael Brown, who had tried to get the officer’s gun and apparently was in the act of charging at the officer.
WND had reported earlier on the hammer-beating death of Zemir Begic, 32, but police said at the time they were not viewing the situation as a hate crime, even though the head of the city’s Bosnian Chamber of Commerce, Sadik Kukic, told WND the community members have more than a little suspicion.
“In the last few weeks, there were several crimes against Bosnians,” Kukic told WND. “All the crimes were by the black community.”
Now there’s been a new attack – on a 26-year-old Bosnian-American woman who told police she was stopped by three black teens. According to a Fox News report, one of the attackers had a gun and ordered the woman out of her car, after which she was beaten unconscious.
The report said the St. Louis police chief now is asking for the FBI’s help investigating “what he believes was a hate crime attack against a woman in the same Bosnian neighborhood where a man was beaten to death days earlier by hammer-wielding teens.”
According to the report, one of the attackers said, “You’re Bosnian. I should just kill you now.”
Police reported the woman was found later, unconscious, by a passerby.
So St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson moved to get the FBI involved.
“As of now, officers are investigating this incident as a bias crime based on the victim’s account of the incident,” the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said in an email Monday. “The investigation is ongoing.”
Authorities also say they are concerned about a surge recently in violent crime.
“Although police have not made a connection, the crime spike coincides with the rioting that followed the August police shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri,” Fox News reported.
Alderman Carol Howard said in a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that crime has grown since August.
Kukic earlier had told WND there was a series of crimes against the 70,000-strong Bosnian community in the St. Louis area last spring. An increase in foot patrols by police officers then apparently quelled the threat.
Then, he said, a few weeks ago, again, there were several more crimes against Bosnians.
“An hour before that man was killed, there was another Bosnian that was attacked,” he said, adding that the victim ended up in the hospital.
Fox News also reported there had been a string of previous crimes involving poor minorities and Bosnians in the area.
And an AP story reposted on the chamber Web page said there have been other violent incidents lately that have rattled the Bosnian community. A 19-year-old Bosnian immigrant was shot and killed in a May 2013 convenience store robbery, and earlier this month, there was an armed robbery and separate carjacking.
Another increase in police patrols now is being organized again, officials said.
In the hammer attack, police say Begic was driving with Arijana Mujkanovic, his fiancee, and another man when the mob of teens began pounding on his vehicle with a hammer.
Begic confronted them and was hit in the mouth, face and head. He died shortly later.
Several suspects were taken into custody.
