An immigrant from war-torn Iraq, newly married and in Dallas for only 20 days, thought he’d take pictures of his first snowfall. Just like anybody might.
Newlywed From Iraq Fatally Shot While Taking Pics After Seeing Snow For First Time
A newlywed taking photos of his first snowfall was killed in an apparent random gun firing in Dallas Thursday, less than a month after he moved to the United States from Iraq, police and family said.
“He just bought a car,” the victim’s father-in-law Mohammed Al Taae said. “[He was] trying to find a decent job to start his life.”
Witnesses told police that a group of men was randomly firing a gun near the 9900 block of Walnut Street at about 12:30 a.m. Thursday when 36-year-old Ahmed Al-Jumaili was shot.
Police said Al-Jumaili was in a nearby parking lot taking pictures of the snow at the time.
This story reminds me a lot of this one, also involving an immigrant from Iraq, this one a new U.S. citizen visiting a tourist town in Georgia. Just an unfortunate accident, of course. It is unfathomable to me that someone who has escaped the horrors of their war-ravaged country to start a new life in America could be cut down doing something as mundane as visiting a tourist town or taking pictures of their first snowfall.
Texas has been in the news a lot lately for gun negligence: three children in Houston, a 14-year-old in Ft. Worth yesterday fatally shot by his 24-year-old friend, and this one, described as “a young adult,” injured but not seriously. All of this as Texas debates allowing guns in even more places.
Because allowing guns almost everywhere is working so well for you guys now. I mean, just do the body count.
/sarcasm
This is abject stupidity.
Southern Beale 
This guy move from a violent kill crazy country run by religious fanatics to a violent kill crazy state run by religious fanatics. I don’t know, something should have clicked.
Good point. Hey something DID click … (gun humor)
Native Dallasite here – not once in my life of 61 yrs did I ever hear of anyone standing around the neighborhood ‘randomly shooting’. Criminy.
On an update, they are now investigating it as a hate crime, according to the Dallas Morning News.
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2015/03/man-fatally-shot-overnight-while-taking-pictures-of-snow.html/
As well they should. Though in places with such liberal gun laws, it’s hard to get a prosecution… sorta like the problem with Stand Your Ground laws.
There’s something very wrong when a man comes from a country where he is likely to be killed by suicide bombers and other religious fanatics, only to be killed by someone who practices guns as their religion. And why are these always in Texas? Are Texans a special kind of stupid?
If hate crime doesn’t work in Texas, wrongful death may. Texas Statutes section 71.002; “A person is liable for damages arising from an injury that causes an individual’s death if the injury was caused by the person’s or his agent’s or servant’s wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default..”
Yes, except when the stupidentalist shooter has “already suffered enough.”
Right, that’s enforced so often in Texas, except when it’s not.
A famous RW talking point used to be, “we don’t need new gun laws, we just need to enforce the ones we already have.” That was laughable coming from pro-gun loons, considering they were doing everything in their power to loosen or even abolish what gun laws we did have. But they are correct that the gun laws we have are not enforced, or are not enforced fairly.
I was thinking of wrongful death for the case you wrote about in the post above. A “group of men was randomly firing a gun” certainly seems to indicate the carelessness and unskillfulness cited in the statute, should the family wish to pursue that route. But, I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t live in Texas. Damn, Georgia is bad enough. As I’ve said here before, when it’s a child, it’s parental/caregiver neglect, which also isn’t enforced.
The non-enforcement argument has been around for decades. I learned about it after I married and moved up north. The first Mr. CB was a second-amendment enthusiast. He and his father and brother were seasonal hunters, i.e., I never got to spend Thanksgiving with him. Part of the enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that they lived in New York State, which actually had gun laws, and did enforce them, at least at the time I lived there they did. Now that open/concealed carry are the hot button issues du jour, you don’t hear about enforcement anymore.
NY still has fairly stringent firearms regulations around handguns, so called, “assault weapons” and military weaponry but there’s still an element of “boys will be boys” (when they’re good ol’ boys, at least).