From what I have heard from an expert discussing this on the radio, whether it is a “hate crime” or not is legally irrelevant. In NC, the “hate crime” designation is only used to bump up a crime from misdemeanor to a felony. Murder is already a felony.
Sounds like an equal-opportunity hater who goes around looking for things to be pissed about.
My wife and I lived in that condo complex two decades ago when we were grad students. I’ve found these murders particularly chilling.
It sounds like he was a misanthrope. Other neighbors have described him as always angry. His wife (who apparently was in the process of divorcing him) says that his favorite movie was “Falling Down”. He thought it was hilarious. 
Middle-aged white guy with a gun and a chip on his shoulder. The parking dispute may have been the flashpoint, but he was angry at the world and at religious people in particular. I don’t think he killed his victims solely because they were Muslim, but I believe that the fact they were Muslim contributed significantly to him wanting to kill them.
By all accounts, Deah, Yuzor and Razan were lovely people. What a shame.
Two acts of being an asshole don’t make a right. Not that I believe for a second you really do this, internet tough guy.
That’s true as far as NC goes, but there’s also a federal law (18 USC 249) that provides for up to life in prison if you kill somebody based on their “actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin” or their “actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability”, if, among other things, “the defendant employs a firearm, dangerous weapon, explosive or incendiary device, or other weapon that has traveled in interstate or foreign commerce”
It’s an 89 Honda. How would he notice?
I admit I was surprised when I found out the guy was supposedly an atheist, I figured if anything he would be some fundamentalist Christian. I suppose if you were a misguided misanthrope it would give you an excuse to hate even more people.
Does triple murder in NC carry a penalty of less than life in prison? Not sure how the feds are relevant here, as they’ll never prosecute unless NC passes on it.
10 years ago if his Facebook page (or Myspace or whatever) said he liked video games, then the headlines would be how the video games made him a killer.
Before that it would be because that he had a Marilyn Manson album.
Remember when “Road Rage” (up to and including the use of guns) was all the news could talk about? “Going postal”?
Some small number of people are just walking stress cases. It’s difficult to predict when and why they could snap. Some situation that seems trivial to you and me could do it, when all of the right “stress” conditions line up.
And how many instances of rage crimes involve execution-style murders inside an apartment? I’m just saying that the facts as we know them suggest something more going on than just the parking dispute.
If a “parking problem” leads one to murder, the problem is not parking.
Of all the people he “had issues with,” the ones he chose to murder were the identifiable Muslims.
There was just something in the news today about somebody who stabbed her upstairs neighbor to death for playing music too loudly. People get set off by the stupidest things.
It might have been rap, though.
What’s pathetic is that 1000’s of Muslims will attack and burn Christians and their churches over this. Like Charlie Hedbo, it doesn’t involve Christians (or Jews) yet they will be made to pay for anything done to a Muslim, anywhere in the world, for any reason.
What’s the word I’m looking for… ignorant?
… backward?
… unenlightened?
ETA:
Whatever it is, it means “400 years behind me in spiritual development.”
When you organize your terrorism with an iPhone, you don’t get to claim ignorance and medievalism. When you react within minutes or hours of news of a lone crazy in the US doing something bad, you don’t get to claim ignorant medievalism. You are connected. You are aware. You read the latest news and information, and you burn churches anyway.
No they won’t.
Sadly, I can’t give you long odds though.
What do you have to say about the recent burning of mosques in the US?