James Holmes, the alleged shooter who killed 12 in a crowded Colorado movie theater, reportedly worked at a Muslim summer camp for underprivileged children.
Holmes, 24, spent a summer working as a counselor for an Islamic Camp in Glendale, Calif., which is run by Muslim Brothers of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles New Times reported Saturday.
He is suspected of opening fire on the crowd late Thursday night at a midnight screening in Aurora, Colo., of the new Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises.” Twelve people were killed and 58 were injured in the shooting spree.
Holmes was arrested shortly after the shootings. He reportedly set off smoke bombs before firing at the crowd.
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Muhammad Mureed, chief executive of Muslim Society of Los Angeles and director of Camp Islam, said of Holmes, “His role was to ensure that these children had a wonderful camp experience by helping them learn confidence, self-esteem and how to work in small teams to effect positive outcomes.” In a later e-mail, Mureed added, “That summer provided the kids a wonderful camp experience without incident.”
Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas sent a letter to President Obama on Saturday expressing his condolences and those of the Palestinian people to the families of the Americans who were murdered in the theater.
“All Palestinians stand alongside the American people in mourning over this terrible tragedy which claimed the lives of so many,” Morsi said. “We well understand the pain and loss that you are experiencing.”
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
If Joe Blow rapes a woman in your neighborhood, should the police arrest Joe, or should they arrest and harass his parents, siblings, kids, spouse, and his friends?
Joe committed the crime and his tushie needs to be hauled off, and by arresting him, it bring calmness to the neighborhood, knowing that the rapist is locked up. People would feel safe again and a sense of safety would be restored in the community.
On the other hand, imagine harassing the entire neighborhood, blaming the Mayor and the pastor or even the Bible for this criminal, we will never resolve an issue if we dance around it.
Do you remember how quickly the opportunists cashed in on Osama Bin Laden? He was the bad guy, but we destroyed nations instead of him, we blamed their religion and their book, how dumb! Did the Billion plus Muslims vote Bin Laden to do the evil? We recklessly sacrificed 5000 of our men and women in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and have destroyed other nations and innocent people and shamelessly called it a collateral damage.
Had we nailed the criminal Osama bin Laden in the first place, and not others, we would not have caused budget deficits, and millions of Americans would not have lost their jobs and their homes. The war mongers should never be listened to, they make their good, but the common man gets screwed. Wars destroy us more than it destroys others. The results are in our face.
Where is Pamela Geller, Brigitte Gabrielle, Fank Gaffney, Robert Spencer, David Horowitz or their ilk? It’s an opportunity for them to make a capital out of it. Of course, they will not take it up because it was not a Muslim.
CAVEAT EMPTOR
This is a spoof, a mocking imitation of an article that appeared in the JTA.org, thanks to them. The original piece has the word Jew in place of Muslim, Netanyahu in place of Mahmoud Abbas, and Palestine in place of Israel.
I hope we reflect on how our media and some of the opportunists would have reacted if this guy had gone to a Muslim camp.
A chill went up my spine imagining if it were a Muslim how much of a mess they would have created in America. Instead of going after the criminal, they would have blamed Muslims, Muslim Brotherhood in the US (Hallucination of Michelle Bachman and the other opportunists) and Islam.
It’s time for America to wake up and question the integrity of these men and women, thanks to John McCain for unleashing the power of questioning, others will follow and a trend is in the making to restore America to be just and not put with the non-sense of the opportunists.
Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on the topics of Pluralism, Coexistence, politics, interfaith, Islam and cohesive societies. He is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.