Three people were shot and killed in Chapel Hill Tuesday evening.
The victims are newlyweds Deah Barakat, 23, a second-year student in the School of Dentistry, and Yusor Mohammed, 21, who planned to start at the dentistry school in the Fall, as well as Yusor's sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, a student at North Carolina State University.
Police responded to a report of gunshots in at Finley Forest Condominiums in the Summerwalk Circle neighborhood shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday, finding all three subjects shot and dead on the scene.
Craig Stephen Hicks, a 46 year-old Chapel Hill resident who lives on the same block as Deah and Yusor, has been arrested by city police and charged with three counts of first degree murder. He is being held without bond in the Durham County jail with his first court appearance scheduled for Wednesday.
“Our preliminary investigation indicates that the crime was motivated by an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking,” the Chapel Hill police department said in a statement. “Hicks is cooperating with investigators and more information may be released at a later time.”
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill notified students of the shooting and the identities of the victims in an AlertCarolina message at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Because all three victims were Muslim, people on social media have called the murders religiously motivated and started the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter, with some pointing out that Hicks frequently put pro-atheist posts on his Facebook page. The Council on American Islamic Relations also issued a statement urging law enforcement to address the speculation over whether the crime was bias motivated. Members of the Duke community have been among those showing solidarity with the victims.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the UNC and NC State community, particularly the members of the Muslim community there. There is a tendency to say this is a nice place, these eruptions of violence don¹t belong here. And yet here we are. This is, in all of the heartbreak and violence and sadness, where we are. This is today¹s America," Omid Safi, director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center, wrote in an email. "I hope we take time to grieve, to mourn, to console one another, to bury our dead, to pray, and also to take a deep long hard long inside our own souls, our own community, and wonder why and how we have a society in which these acts of violence, particularly towards marginalized community, people of color, African-Americans, Muslims, gays, lesbians, happen increasingly frequently."
Ayoub Ouederni, vice president of UNC Muslim Students Association, said he hopes that the incident serves as an example to society that people must "turn down the rhetoric."
"We've seen the increasing acceptance of Islamophobia everyday," Ouederni said. "People motivated by that American Sniper movie and events like that. People get a sick idea in their head and act on it, and we've seen this in America… We're all just human beings, we're all just mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters."
The shooting has garnered national attention in the media and on Twitter and Facebook, with the story appearing on outlets such as the Huffington Post, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
My cousin, his wife and sister in law were murdered for being muslim. Someone tell me racism/hate crimes don't exist. #MuslimLivesMatter
— Haya Barakat (@HayaBarakat) February 11, 2015
Police have not officially announced a motive for the shootings.
"We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case," Chief Chris Blue of the Chapel Hill Police Department said at a press conference, according to the Huffington Post. "Our thoughts are with the families and friends of these young people who lost their lives so needlessly."
Check back for updates to this developing story. This article was updated at 11:54 a.m. with comment from Omid Safi and at 1:15 p.m. with comment from Ayoub Ouederni.
Neelesh Moorthy contributed reporting.
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