Bevo area residents express frustration with violence against Bosnians after a man was attacked overnight by teens with hammers. ST. LOUIS • St. Louis Bosnians outraged about a deadly hammer attack in the city’s Bevo Mill neighborhood spilled into the streets Sunday night to voice frustrations over violence touching their community. “We’re just angry because we’re trying to protect our community,” said Mirza Nukic, 29, of St. Louis. “We’re just trying to be peaceful.” Nukic was among at least 50 people, mostly, if not all Bosnians, who briefly blocked Gravois Avenue at Itaska Street on Sunday night to protest the killing. The intersection was near where Zemir Begic, a Bosnian man who moved to St. Louis this year, was attacked by at least three teens with hammers early Sunday.
Bosnian whites are allowed to protest racist hate crimes as Bosnians, but not as whites. The 32-year-old victim of mob violence had lived in the United States for the majority of his life, but the important thing is he’s Bosnian, not white. Please, nobody mention the W-word.
Police said Begic was in his vehicle about 1:15 a.m. in the 4200 block of Itaska when several juveniles approached and began damaging his car. Police said Begic got out to confront the juveniles, who began yelling at him and hitting him with hammers. Begic, 32, who lived in the 4200 block of Miami Street, suffered injuries to his head, abdomen, face and mouth. He died at St. Louis University Hospital. Some of the demonstrators recalled other recent Bosnian victims of violence, including Haris Gogic, 19, who was fatally shot in May 2013 by a robber in his family’s Bevo Mill convenience store. St. Louis police Chief Sam Dotson spoke with residents at the street protest Sunday night. He said he was sorry about what happened and sought to reassure people the killing did not appear motivated by race or ethnicity. “There is no indication that the gentleman last night was targeted because he was Bosnian,” Dotson said. “There’s no indication that they knew each other.”
Okay, if he wasn’t targeted for being Bosnian (the victim is a pretty average looking white guy, after all), and if the teens with hammers didn’t know him, then … is there something missing from this story? Did he bump them with his car or something? Otherwise, it sure sounds like an anti-white hate crime, probably payback for Michael Brown, right?
Dotson said police have two male juveniles, ages 15 and 16, in custody. Police know the nickname of a third suspect and believe a fourth was involved. …
Suad Nuranjkovic, 49, who attended Sunday night’s protest, said he and Begic were heading home from a bar on Gravois Avenue. Begic was driving and Nuranjkovic was in the passenger seat when a group of at least five teens started banging on the car. Nuranjkovic said he got out of the car and hid in a parking lot across the street during the attack. “I was afraid that if one of them had a gun, they were going to shoot me, so I didn’t know what to do,” he said. Nuranjkovic said the attack has made him fearful to live in his own neighborhood. “The picture is in my head, what I saw,” he said. “I don’t know why this is happening to Bosnians. We could go around and shoot people, too, but we just want peace.” Seldin Dzananovic, 24, said the teens with the hammers approached him farther north on Gravois about an hour before the attack on Begic. He said he was able to fight them off, suffering only cuts to his hands and neck.
So, this was a roving mob late on a Saturday night attacking white people with hammers over the course of an hour or so?
She said she knows some Bosnians are upset over her brother’s death because they believe the suspects, who are black and Hispanic, targeted Begic because he was Bosnian. She said she wants people to know her brother would not have judged them because of their race; he had friends of many racial and ethnic backgrounds.
This seems to be a thing lately: when white people get murdered by nonwhites, their loved ones feel compelled to immediately make clear that the poor dead bastard wasn’t racist. You saw it a lot with the relatives of the victims of Omar Thornton’s racist rampage in 2010. So, it’s a pretty mysterious story in St. Louis. But the London Daily Mail has more:
Police said Begic was not targeted for being Bosnian and did not say if there was a connection to unrest after Ferguson grand jury decision The suspects are described as being a group of Hispanic and black males by the St Louis Post-Dispatch but Police Chief Sam Dotson stated the attack was not racially or ethnically motivated.
It’s not as if powerful and prestigious institutions have been telling minority teens in the St. Louis area for the last week that they are the victims of white people. Oh, wait, they have … By the way, here’s a post-Omar Thornton 2011 news story that never made a ripple. A black truck driver, Shareef Allman, complaining about discrimination and racism on the job, shot nine coworkers, killing three of them. The three dead guys were Mexicans, so at least their relatives seem to have been spared having to explain to the press that their loved ones weren’t racist and thus didn’t have it coming. This happened in Cupertino, CA, so that’s completely off the beaten track. No reporter ever goes to Cupertino, so that’s why you’ve never heard about this story.
