Chapel Hill Victim’s Sister: Police ‘Insulting and Outrageous’ for Saying Killing Happened Over Parking

Following the slaying of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the chief suspect's wife has claimed that the murders had nothing to do with hate but rather revolved around a “parking dispute.” The morning show CBS Inside Edition even utilized this absurd excuse as a way to introduce a segment on parking, in a truly bizarre bit on how to find parking at the mall.

This morning, Dr. Susanne Barakat, the sister of Deah Barakat, one of the three victims, appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe to rebut the claim that her brother died over a mere dispute over parking. Host Joe Scarborough asked Barakat if she agrees with Chapel Hill that the killing was over a parking space:

BARAKAT: I think it’s absolutely insulting, insensitive and outrageous that the first thing they come out and say and issue a statement that this is a parking dispute I’m not sure who they spoke to, because it took me all of five minutes of talking to his former roommate — who they had not reached out to — to give me details, information, text messages. […] [My brother Deah] went to the extent of printing out all of the spots and highlighting which ones were visitor parking spots that can be parked in avoiding the one that he, the neighbor had issues with him parking in. That was not enough.

Watch it here.

Barakat also went on to say that police have yet to reach out to her family. It is remarkable that she feels she has to go through such lengths to rebut the idea that her brother and his wife respected the parking rules of their apartment complex.

It wasn't long ago when black men were routinely murdered in the South; it is important to remember that race was rarely explicilty cited as justification for the lynchings. Vagrancy, petty crime, insult, and other minor acts were cited as justification – but today it is well-understood that while all of these excuses were simply pretext to mask a deeper hate.