Update in the Chapel Hill North Carolina triple homicide shooting, death penalty

It does not appear that the alleged shooter of three Muslim students, Craig Stephen Hicks, will be leaving the local slammer any time soon.  And when he does, if convicted in court, he could be facing the death penalty in North Carolina -- although the 'how' of state executions is somewhat in legal limbo at the moment.

Per the web site, deathpenalty info.org for North Carolina, where there have been recent releases of men on death row, sometimes for decades, who were innocent, and in the face of a lack of approved drugs for lethal injection, even conservatives (which dominate the political landscape of NC) are opposing the death penalty.  Notably a GOP party chair LED from last year opposed the death penalty continuing, where the right has previously strongly championed it:

Mark Edwards, chair of the Nash County (North Carolina) Republican Party, recently spoke about replacing the death penalty with a sentence of lfie without parole: "As a conservative seeking to find the best way to protect the residents of this great state from crime, I believe the death penalty has had its day in North Carolina. It is time to begin the debate on replacing the death penalty with life in prison without parole." He also said, "We are advocating that we replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole, which would will prevent debacles like the Oklahoma execution. It is a tough punishment, and inmates with no hope of release certainly do not live on 'easy street.'" Edwards is a member of North Carolina Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, and he pointed to the toll executions take on correctional officers, especially when executions go wrong: "No matter how professionally the staff carries out its duties, a community is formed and relationships established with the prisoners, including those who sit and wait on death row. Then they have to participate in the inmate’s execution. That cannot be easy for these men and women," Edwards said. "It is not fair for us to impose these untested (and, as the events in Oklahoma remind us, possibly unreliable) drug protocols on the dedicated staff of the Department of Corrections."

The Durham County prosecutor has filed the necessary papers as of Feb. 25th, per Raw Story and local station WTVD.

The federal inquiry into his actions, seeking to determine if this is a hate crime (presumably under federal statutes) and therefore a separate set of charges,is ongoing.

As we have noted here, and as continues to be the finding of the police investigation, this does not appear, so far as we can determine, a religious based hate crime but rather a crazy nut job obsessed with guns seeking to dominate and be an authoritarian figure, much like George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting several years ago.

An interesting if not particularly pertinent detail about Craig Hicks, he was studying to become a para-legal.  The information makes me wonder how this man could have such an apparent disrespect for the law, to have (allegedly) executed three people, and to have so clearly used his firearm for which he had a cc permit, to threaten and intimidate so many other people (many of whom were not Muslim).

GIGO 2: Guns, Islamophobia, and the Politics of Atheism

Old, White, Crabby and Flabby Craig Stephen Hicks,
concealed carry permit holder, and gun obsessed alleged murderer
photo via the WSJ

Craig Stephen Hicks (allegedly) shot three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina this week.

A lot of fuss and fury on the right has focused on him being an atheist.  He was an atheist, and more recently an anti-theist.  That means he called out the bad things done in the name of religion and underlined how religion contributed to the sense of justification for doing those bad things.

But he was not an Islamophobe.  Rather he railed against extremism, including BOTH Christian and Muslim extremism and fundamentalism, equally.  He did not single out either as being the unique in that regard, but rather saw the problems as being similar and coming from the same root causes of the Abrahamic faiths.

Hicks was pro-civil rights for the LGBT community, and he came out in support of the inaccurately dubbed Ground Zero Mosque.

Where the source of the problem with the shooting of the three students, who were apparently incidentally Muslim comes from is the obsession Hicks had with guns, owning them, carrying them, along with an intense interest in other weapons, drones, knives, body armor etc.

Hicks is reported to have confronted the three people he shot on prior occasions, making it clear he was wearing a gun, an implied threat.

Hick's now-estranged wife says this was all about parking issues.  His social media accounts show him to be obsessed with weapons, especially guns, and quote the local PD as saying Hicks was a legal carry permit holder, who was observed by multiple people in the course of his parking place obsession carrying a gun.

This is almost certainly the most pertinent information in this shooting.  From the WSJ:

Alleged Chapel Hill Shooter Had History of Parking Disputes, Tow-Truck Driver Says

Local Driver Says His Company Regularly Received Requests From Suspect to Tow Cars

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—A local tow-truck driver said that the man accused of killing three Muslim students Tuesday night had a history of reporting neighbors for parking in spaces that weren’t theirs and creating “a lot of drama.”
Christopher Lafreniere said his company had a contract for towing in the Finley Forest neighborhood where the alleged shooter, Craig Stephen Hicks, and two of the three victims lived. Mr. Lafreniere said the company was called “every day, or at least several times a week” for more than a year by Mr. Hicks with requests to tow cars that Mr. Hicks said weren’t parked in the proper spaces. In one incident, Mr. Hicks had a gun, Mr. Lafreniere said.
“This guy towed an obscene amount of cars,” Mr. Lafreniere said. “It got to the point where we stopped answering his calls.”
Mr. Lafreniere said he was shocked when he saw coverage of Tuesday’s fatal shootings in the quiet neighborhood. “The news is saying, ‘hate crime, hate crime,’ but then I found out it was that guy and I thought, ‘Hmm, it actually might have been a parking issue,’ ” Mr. Lafreniere said. “He was all about towing.”
Mr. Hicks brought a gun into the small parking lot outside his condominium during a parking dispute on the night of Dec. 14, 2013, Mr. Lafreniere said. A report in the online database of the Chapel Hill Police Department naming Mr. Lafreniere and Mr. Hicks confirms that there was an argument that night involving a tow that Mr. Lafreniere had been called in to make in the small parking lot outside Mr. Hicks’s apartment.


Spaces in the Finley Forest condos are assigned and it was inconvenient for people coming home at night to have a car in their space, Mr. Lafreniere said. Mr. Hicks was by far the most frequent person to request a car be towed in the sprawling neighborhood dotted by small lots.

Mr. Lafreniere said he went to Finley Forest that night to tow a Toyota Prius parked in the wrong spot. The request was called in “for once” by a different neighbor, he said. The Prius owner was upset about being towed, and Mr. Hicks called the police to report noise in the parking lot, Mr. Lafreniere said.

“He comes out with a gun and says, ‘I’ve called the police,’ ” Mr. Lafreniere said. “I heard sirens from miles away.”

The story reminds me quite a bit of George Zimmerman the self-appointed boss of the neighborhood watch, and his gun carrying proclivities, along with the history of anger issues.  These people get a little power crazed, thinking they have some authority they don't, and then eventually shooting people because of it.

These gun obsessions are never healthy.  For those who will argue that guns don't kill people, people kill people, without the gun and without the obsession over guns, and without the carry permit that entitled him to parade around with his gun to try to order people around who were not armed, it is unlikely three people would be dead.  People WITH GUNS kill people; it's much harder to do it without guns, especially if you're old, white, flabby and crabby.