Daddy’s Little Girl

Media interest in the story of apparent serial killings of Muslim men in Albuquerque New Mexico deflated like air from a balloon when police revealed they had arrested a Sunni Muslim suspect they say was targeting Shia Muslim men because he was angry his daughter married one.

Once a story is revealed to run counter-Narrative the more interesting it gets the less media interest it generates. And this one became more interesting when the same daughter stepped in to offer an alibi the police say is false:

His daughter told CNN that Syed knew several of the slain men, but insisted that her father was at home at the time of the shootings, without offering any proof to support the alibi. 

CNN did not name the daughter, but Syed’s daughter Lubna has spoken out in his defense in other interviews. Religious sectarian tensions between Syed and Lubna’s husband are being probed as a potential motive in the murders. 

Naturally Arizona’s lady-governor fell all over herself assuming a potential Jacinda Arden moment, before the predictable plot twist.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Saturday that she deployed additional state police to help with the probe into the “targeted killings.”

“The targeted killings of Muslim residents of Albuquerque is deeply angering and wholly intolerable,” she wrote on Twitter.

“We will not stop in our pursuit of justice for the victims and their families and are bringing every resource to bear to apprehend the killer or killers — and we WILL find them,” the Democrat said in a statement.

She added: “I am angered and saddened that this is happening in New Mexico, a place that prides itself on diversity of culture and thought. This is not who we are.”

Two things worth knowing: would the governor have deployed extra police without her apparent assumption the suspect was an “Islamophobe”, and did police operate on that assumption? Until the careless suspect stumbled into their lap, perhaps? Of course these questions won’t be asked, being of interest.

And platitudes aren’t platitudes if they’re interesting, but it would be fun to revisit those knee-jerk reactions. When the villain wore a Maga hat he was “not who we are”; is he who we are now?

Because the reality is a white terrorist would still have been more “who we are” than the current suspect ever will be. That doesn’t make him right. But if he’s beyond the pale, is not the Muslim father, assuming the allegations are true?

But I agree, now. That Muslim dad is not Who We Are. I also agree with the president:

President Biden expressed solidarity with the local Muslim community on Sunday.

“While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my administration stands strongly with the Muslim community,” Biden said in a Twitter post. “These hateful attacks have no place in America.”

Yes, by God, non-Western sectarian and ethnic violence have no place in America.