Early Sunday morning on June 19th, 17-year old Nabra Hassanen was brutally murdered as she and a group of friends were walking back to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling, Virginia after their pre-dawn meal.
Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, had driven up behind them, as a few members of the group were one the road and others on the sidewalk. After a dispute with a member of the group, Torres caught up with the group at a nearby parking lot and chased them down with a metal bat. He had struck Hassanen, and according to officials, he drove her to a nearby location and assaulted her again before he later dropped her body into a man-made pond a few miles from the parking lot. An autopsy later showed that she had suffered blunt-force trauma to her upper body.
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From what is reported thus far, and given our polarized political realm it is difficult to read a story like this and not have conceived notions about the type of crime this is. There is no doubt that there have been attacks on the Muslim community, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, however, the murder of Nabra Hassanen is not to be confused with a hate crime.
The FBI has defined “hate crime” as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”
There is no evidence that shows Torres attacked this group of people based on their religion. Fairfax County Police have also issued a statement saying that they are not investigating this as a hate crime, as it lacks the necessary evidence to do so.
It is fair to note that Torres is an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, which also happens to be one of the most violent countries in the world and home to the notorious gang, MS-13. The point is not that a person of Hispanic background can’t be prejudiced, but that someone who has recently come from a country with a very violent environment might have other motives.
We live in a world where a headline like “Nabra Hassanen, Muslim Teen, Was Killed Leaving Mosque Because Of Road Rage: Police” from the Huffington Post most likely won’t resonate with people the way it should. The need to emphasize in the headline that she is Muslim and was leaving the Mosque already insinuates a hate crime before anyone even reads the article to determine that may not necessarily be the case.
This is a very dangerous road that news outlets are going down for the simple fact that an article can instill an emotional element into a story before people have a chance to research what is factual. Most mainstream outlets also downplayed his immigration status and possible gang affiliation.
Millennials are especially guilty of this as they tend to repost or “retweet” stories through their social media accounts and include additional commentary based on their own personal beliefs and conceived notions of a situation — sometimes without even reading the article itself.
It is inevitable that a headline concluding that a young, Muslim woman leaving a mosque was killed is not only going to get more attention, but it will get more clicks or reactions on social media because of that emotional element and the nature of our politics. The rate in which stories can be posted or reposted provides ample room for misinformation to be spread.
