Posted on 01/18/2005 1:22:47 PM PST by Brilliant
JERSEY CITY, Jan. 17 - The funeral for an Egyptian immigrant family found slain in their home here erupted into a scene of chaos and roiling emotion on Monday, with some mourners jumping on top of cars, shoving each other and threatening to beat a Muslim cleric who was escorted to safety by the police.
The source of the disruption at the Coptic Christian service appeared to be the presence of Muslims, who said they had come to pay their respects.
In the days since the victims, Hossam Armanious, 46; his wife, Amal Garas, 36; and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were found stabbed to death in their home early on Friday, speculation that the slayings were a hate crime has led to loud recriminations by Christian Egyptians, expressed in news interviews and at a demonstration here on Sunday.
Muslims and Christians have a long and violent history in Egypt, where Muslims are the majority, but relations between the groups had never soured locally, several Muslim and Coptic Christian leaders said. Although the case brought new tension to the Egyptian community, the Jersey City police have refused to say whether they believe the slayings were the result of religious hatred.
"Those are killers!" yelled one man as Sheik Tarek Yousof Saleh, a Muslim cleric from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, left the funeral site, escorted by police officers. "We don't want them in the church!"
In a telephone interview yesterday afternoon, Sheik Saleh said he never intended to cause trouble and regretted attending the funeral. "I didn't come to hurt anyone, I came to support them," said Sheikh Saleh, 42, the imam of the Oulel Albab Mosque on Bay Ridge Avenue, sounding shaken. "I am sorry."
The uproar outside the community center of St. George and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church, on Bergen Avenue, began when some of the hundreds of mourners present saw a Coptic bishop hug the sheik before the sheik left in a police car, several members of the church said. According to the Rev. Antonious Tanious and several other Coptic Christians, two men began screaming at Bishop David, who presides over the Coptic churches in the Northeast, asking him how he could let a Muslim attend the service.
Panicked police officers whisked the two men and some others into a nearby garage and closed the metal door just as a swell of people, some screaming and waving wooden crosses, pressed up against the door.
"A metal gate on the garage was pulled down to prevent the groups from attacking each other," said Capt. John Tooke of the Jersey City Police Department. "It was a very chaotic and emotional scene. We had people that were rowdy, disruptive and really out of control."
After 15 minutes, most of the group in the garage was allowed to leave. The two men were detained but not charged, Captain Tooke said. Another man walked around dazed afterward, his hand bleeding. "We tell the Muslim people, 'Don't come here.' We don't like them and they come," said Nadia Sourrial, a church member, echoing a sentiment expressed by numerous other people who were interviewed. "They like to show us we're dead."
In the interview yesterday, Sheik Saleh said two editors of local Arabic-language newspapers called him on Sunday evening and advised him to go to the funeral in a show of solidarity between Muslims and Christians, he said.
Sheik Saleh, who is Egyptian, went with one of the editors, Ahmed Saleh Maharem, who is also a columnist. Mr. Maharem said at least 10 other Muslims were present, and some were welcomed. But the Sheik, who wore a white abayya, or head covering, was most noticeably Muslim.
Dozens of other Muslims, many of them community leaders, canceled plans to attend the funeral after seeing television reports about the mounting friction, said Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim community activist in Brooklyn. The New Jersey office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement Monday saying that the organization had called on law enforcement authorities to do everything in their power to apprehend those responsible for the murders.
Investigators, who are working with the F.B.I., continued to comb the family's house on Oakland Avenue over the weekend in search of clues. Theft appeared to be at least part of the motive: investigators said that only a penny remained in the house after the slayings and that Mr. Armanious's pockets and wallet had been emptied.
The police would not confirm reports by Coptic Christians that Mr. Armanious had engaged in fiery debates about Christianity and Islam in an Internet chat room, which fueled rumors that the murders were a hate crime.
A Justice Department official did confirm a report, on WABC-TV, that a relative of the slain family was a translator for the government in the case of Lynne F. Stewart, the lawyer accused of aiding terrorists. The official said the translator was a distant relative who had not seen the family in several years, adding, "We believe there is no connection between this person and the slaying."
The friction started before the funeral yesterday morning as hundreds of people gathered for a procession in Journal Square in downtown Jersey City. One man yelled, "Who is going to be next?" as pallbearers lifted the four bronze coffins out of the hearses.
Several women began wailing and crying, beating their fists on the coffins and slapping their own faces as the procession slowly began to move along Bergen Avenue. About 20 clergymen in white robes crashed cymbals and led the group, with Bishop David, in a melodious and haunting Coptic song, asking God for mercy.
Shopkeepers, pedestrians and other passers-by stood stunned at the edge of the six-lane avenue, watching intently as the four coffins moved past, each one marked by a photograph of the victim inside. Even the pallbearers wept.
The procession ended after four blocks, as hundreds of people crowded into the church's community center. The coffins were placed in a row at the front, covered by floral wreaths. Relatives of the family rocked back and forth in grief as the service began, with clergy members reading from the Bible and friends remembering the slain family.
A Sunday school teacher read from several essays Sylvia had written, including: "The only good thing I absolutely adore about Jersey is that my church is in it. I love my church to death."
As the service progressed, Sheik Saleh was standing on the sidewalk outside when a police officer invited him in, he said, followed by a church member who led him to the front, where the mayor of Jersey City, Jerramiah T. Healy, was ending a speech.
Suddenly, several people cried, "Out! Out!" and the room erupted in loud shouts. Ayman Garas, the brother of one of the victims, Amal Garas, yelled in Arabic for everyone to stop, and Bishop David invited the sheik to sit with several Coptic clergymen.
The crowd continued to yell until Bishop David called out: "Everyone has to show the teachings of Christ, the love. I would like everyone to sit down and be in peace."
At the end of the service, as Sheik Saleh walked out with several clergy members and the police, one woman near the front door called out, "Animals! Animals!"
Around the same time, Sheik Saleh said he heard threats of a beating: "Bring a stick to his head," he said he recalled people yelling. "Beat him, take him away."
"I don't blame any one of them," he added. "Emotionally they are not happy right now."
After the bodies were entombed in crypts at Rosedale Cemetery and Crematory in Linden, the funeral party returned to Bergen Avenue to share a meal of chicken and mashed potatoes. Bishop David, when asked what he thought of one of the men who yelled at him after the funeral, said, "People are angry. He's still our child."
Julia Preston, John Holl and Jason George contributed reporting for this article.
It's interesting that the Muslim clerics showed up for the funeral. Suppose they know something they aren't telling us?
I doubt it, and I hope not.
Robbers don't massacre whole families with knives.
Instead of saying, "I came to support them", how about speaking out about the Islamofascist butchers.
Will we be waiting in vain that those that are aware of who the killers are will come forward and notify the police in order to bring these killers to justice.
Or will the old standing Islamic protection collusion prevail?
One assumes and thinks these people came in order to live in freedom for themselves and others, or is it to kill infidels?
the Jersey City police have refused to say whether they believe the slayings were the result of religious hatred.<<<
The Jersey Police will NEVER say what it really is. And so the Riots and Jihads will begin on this soil, while the police and government ignores the threat that MUSLIMS bring to this Nation.
A penny? A PENNY?
That's the kind of detail that reeks of fiction, not fact.
The police would not confirm reports by Coptic Christians that Mr. Armanious had engaged in fiery debates about Christianity and Islam in an Internet chat room, which fueled rumors that the murders were a hate crime.
And then the NY Times frames the key issue in the most bland language possible.
Ethnic cleansing comes to America and it is not a "story".
This should have been AT LEAST as big as the Matthew Shepherd or James Byrd murders were.
And there in a nutshell is the difference between the Christians and the Muslims. They threatened... the Muslims just do it.
And, I'm not even addressing the issue of whether the cleric was there, innocently, to calm tensions or, on the contrary, to gloat--I haven't a clue either way.
The Manson "family" wanted their murders to resemble a "robbery" as well. They wanted to start a race war (and I believe that they plotted to or did discard a stolen wallet in a black neighborhood)
but it sounds like terrible behavior on behalf of some of the Christian attendees.<<
I dont think we know the whole story here, but why in the world should any Christian suffer the presence of muslims at a Christian Funeral? The muslim was NOT INVITED he "Crashed" a funeral!
It was in Incredibly Bad Taste for a muslim to show his false-God worshipping head at the funeral of a murdered Christian!
Seems like if someone was interested in robbery, they'd rob someone with money, and chose a house where they did not have to slit 4 throats to get it. The fact that they were bound makes it sound like more than one killer.
The NYT, of course, can't believe that anyone would commit a hate crime against Christians. That certainly wasn't what they had in mind when they urged passage of the hate crime law.
Ethnic cleansing comes to America and it is not a "story".
The MSM and the rest of the iberal faction will not admit what is going to happen/is happening within our borders.
We have too many people from too many places - places of war and famine and ignorance. We must rise above or be brought down to their level - the level of dogs fighting in the streets.
Amen! You know that if a Christian showed up to a muslime funeral, the mohammedans would kill the Christian. The muslime got off easy.....
The muslime got off easy.....
Only for now, I'm sure.
This news is disturbing on many levels. But the most disturbing thing is that muslim(e)s ARE bringing their close-minded, bomb-packing, murdering viewpoints to this Country and they are going to Force an OPEN JIHAD.
I'm keeping my eyes open and supplies handy.
If he REALLY wanted to show respect, he would be on TV and in every public place he can be preaching how these acts of terrorism against Christians was absolutely WRONG and that anyone committing such violence would go straight to the Muslim equivalent of Hell.
But you notice that he didn't disavow the acts at all....
Betcha you even think "profiling" of 17 to 40 year olds Muslimes is OK! LOL..............;^)
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