By Kaitie Christenberry |Echo
Fort Wayne police are still searching for the killers of three men executed on Feb. 24. The bodies were found in an empty Fort Wayne home with multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Friends returned to the house after leaving one hour earlier and law enforcement believe the murder happened during this time.
The police have connected the house to gang activity, though the victims Muhannad Adam Tairab, 17, Adam Kamal Mekki, 20, and Mohamedtaha Omar, 23, have no known gang affiliations.
Citizens are outraged, as it was previously believed the three men were Muslim, causing many to believe the murders were a hate crime. The police have no reason to believe this after speaking to the families who told him that Mekki was Christian. Police continue to search for leads outside of a possible hate crime; however, they have not completely ruled it out.
Frank Farley, president for the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence, told The Journal Gazette that execution-style killings of this kind "are meant to be deliberate, planned and to leave a message." Due to the nature of the killings, law enforcement thinks more than one person committed the murders.
Minority activists and citizens fear that a hate crime is being downplayed in the face of rising Islamaphobia. The young men, emigrants from the Sahel region in East Africa who had obtained their citizenship, were "good kids", according to Valerie Handschu.
As reported by the Chicago Tribune, Fort Wayne Police Chief Garry Hamilton said "that he asked for the FBI's assistance in case investigators find a link between the victims' religion and their deaths." In the meantime, the police, family and community continue to search for anyone with information about the murders.
