My Somali crime stories* have been on the back burner lately as we try to get a handle on the fast-moving Haitian refugee issue. But, here is terrible Somali crime news from Chicago reported at Debbie Schlussel and sent to me by Janet.
From the Chicago Sun Times:
An irate taxi driver involved in a long-running dispute with two neighbors intentionally set fire to a Rogers Park apartment building, killing one person and injuring five others, prosecutors said.
Mahad Ali Hassan, a 26-year-old Somali immigrant, was denied bail Sunday on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated arson and unlawful use of a weapon.
Hassan, who lived on the fourth floor of the five-story building at 6720 N. Sheridan, allegedly poured gasoline in the hallway Thursday and ignited a blaze outside the fifth-floor apartment of two women with whom he had an ongoing feud, prosecutors said.
Arson investigators also found evidence that gasoline was used to ignite a second fire on the fifth floor outside the apartment of Noor Surani, 49.
Surani died of smoke inhalation.
Five other people were injured in the blaze, including one man who jumped from the building’s top floor to escape the fire.
Of the injured — including two firefighters — only the jumper suffered life-threatening injuries, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said.
There is more, read it all.
Learn more about Rogers Park, a section of Chicago in which the US State Department (with their friend Ed Silverman, the Illinois state refugee coordinator) is resettling hundreds (thousands?) of refugees inspite of reports that the neighborhood is a slum and a crime mecca, here. Of course, maybe this is the old chicken or egg story, which came first, crime, or refugees?
* Here are two of our most recent Somali crime stories: Minneapolis triple-murder, here, and Lewiston Somali woman runs down high school student with her Mercedes, here.
For new readers :
The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US (this linked post continues to be one of the most widely read posts we have ever written) in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing. That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon. Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled as I write this.