CAIRless Words

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t ten guys. But he fought like ten guys.

I’m referring to what I consider a genuinely unfortunate incident in the Warrendale community of Detroit, immediately adjacent to Dearborn, in which a homeowner was very badly beaten up either by a neighbor or a friend of a neighbor with whom he had a disagreement. According to what Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said at his press conference on the victim’s doorstep on Tuesday, the beating was a hate crime. Walid alleged “that a group of 10 white men repeatedly swore at victim Shafik Shoaib and told him “go back to where you came from.”

As Walid described it, “They beat an American citizen like a dog in front of his children. There is no excuse.”

We at DU do not condone the beatings of homeowners, nor, for that matter, do we condone the beating of dogs. But nothing in the press coverage of this incident anywhere suggests that anyone was making any excuses for what happened to Mr. Shoaib. In fact, the police promptly arrested a suspect. Within a few hours of the original story the young suspect was charged with two felonies exposing him to up to thirty years in prison. Based on the rather gruesome photos and descriptions of Mr. Shoaib’s injuries, there is no doubt that whoever attacked him, for whatever reason, is a savage, and belongs in jail for a long time.

I just don’t care (no pun intended) for the way CAIR jumps in and tries to turn everything into an example of “Islamophobia,” or worse, make an irresponsible statement that could well incite to further violence.

The only question for me is the level or irresponsibility in Dawud Walid giving a press conference in which he puts out the outrageously incredibly story that ten “white” guys beat up Mr. Shoaib while calling out ethnic slurs. It is irresponsible in the style of Al Sharpton and his shameless lies about the pretend attack on Tawana Brawley.

Within hours of Walid’s press conference it was reported that the prime suspect, Ernest Domenech, 19, of Detroit, was arrested and charged on Wednesday “with home invasion in the first degree and assault with intent to do great bodily harm.”

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy described what happened as “an extremely ugly neighborhood dispute that culminated in the defendant becoming violent. The primary motive for the home invasion and the brutal attack was because the defendant became upset about some words the victim allegedly said."

Mr. Shoaib’s neighbor, Kelly DuVall, (whose daughter is girlfriend of Domenech), stated that Mr. Shoaib started an argument with her because she was smoking on her front lawn near his children. Ms. Worthy is declining Walid’s demands that Domenech be charged with ethnic intimidation (the closest charge available to the “hate crime” charge CAIR wanted), because "while the evidence shows there were some ethnic insults uttered during the assault they do not support the two-year misdemeanor charge of ethnic intimidation."

Apparently, the cops are looking at a possible second suspect. But so far there has been no evidence supporting Walid’s wild charge that there were “10 white men” who attacked Mr. Shoaib simply because he was an Arab.

I repeat, I have no sympathy with the kind of lawless violence leading to a homeowner being beaten nearly to death in his own yard, for any reason. If it’s true, as Kelly DuVall claimed, that the fight started over some harsh words on one side or another, that is no excuse for the violence done to Mr. Shoaib. Nor is it an excuse if there is any truth that Mr. Shoaib was attacked merely because he was an Arab, a scenario I find almost impossible to believe. If the attacker was just one man, or even two, I hope they go to jail for a long time.

If Domenech is the kind of guy who works out his conflicts by committing mayhem, he is clearly a bad guy and a menace, and should be locked up. But the last thing that worries me about guys like him on the streets is his intolerant views about civil rights, or what unexamined prejudices surface during his tantrums. When guys like that slip into attack mode it’s the kicks and punches you need to worry about, not the insults.

This was a vicious assault in a tough neighborhood in a tough town that sees a pretty steady parade of such crimes by violent offenders every single day, often accompanied by the shouting at victims of insensitive insults on the subject of their race, sex, weight, relationship with their mothers, etc., etc. Walid is right that there is no excuse for the violence done to Mr. Shoaib, which is why our society treats things like this as crimes.

But how to excuse Dawud Walid’s cold decision to show up and commit the ethnic equivalent of shouting “fire” by announcing in the midst of a heavily Arab community that there was a gang of “10 white guys” out there with Arab blood on their hands? That makes Walid a menace, too. Fortunately, regardless of Walid’s careless announcement, there has been no sign of a neighborhood uprising in Warrendale of angry Arabs seeking revenge, which is a credit to the good sense of the Arab neighbors, and no credit at all to Walid.