Posted on 03/18/2007 6:26:50 PM PDT by StillProud2BeFree
Soldier: Taunts lead to shooting of student
By DAVID SIMPSON The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 03/17/07
Spc. Craig Perkins' uniform made him a target in Baghdad — and, he believes, again in an apartment complex near Clarkston.
Perkins, who returned last summer after almost a year's duty in Iraq, shot a man outside his apartment March 9 in what he says was the culmination of months of insults by some of his neighbors from the Middle East. Renee' Hannans Henry (ENLARGE) Spc. Craig Perkins says he shot a Mideastern college student last week in self-defense.
Perkins, 34, said some residents in the ethnically diverse Kristopher Woods Apartments taunted him and made spitting sounds when they saw him in uniform heading to or from National Guard duty.
Now Perkins is moving. He said he did not want more conflicts.
Perkins said he shot 26-year-old Tareq Ali Bualsafared in self-defense after Bualsafared and another man threatened him. He said the two men rushed toward his front door even after he fired a warning shot.
Bualsafared, a college student from the United Arab Emirates, said Perkins was the aggressor. He said Perkins cursed them.
Bualsafared, who was shot in the leg, said neither he nor his friend, Saleh Ali, a 17-year-old refugee from Iraq, knew anything about Perkins before he confronted them as they walked by his apartment.
In interviews Friday, the accounts of Perkins and Bualsafared agreed on one detail: There were angry words about Iraq before shots were fired.
Perkins moved in with his girlfriend and her son in the apartment complex south of Clarkston in the summer of 2006. He had just spent almost a year in Baghdad with the Georgia-based 48th Infantry Brigade.
He served most of his time as a "ground pounder" — a soldier who traveled in Bradley armored vehicles, conducting patrols and manning observation posts in Baghdad.
His Bradley once hit an improvised explosive device, he said, filling the vehicle with smoke. His company was spared combat deaths during his tour, he said, but after his return he was horrified to learn from CNN that an Army friend had been kidnapped and beheaded.
In the Clarkston area, Perkins joined a community heavily populated by refugees of violent conflicts around the world. He quickly noticed attire and customs he had seen in Baghdad.
He said he had no animosity for his Middle Eastern neighbors in Clarkston. "I've never been a prejudiced person," he said.
He noted he is a black man with a white girlfriend. He said he has white and American Indian ancestors.
But he said he could feel the animosity when he walked by his Middle Eastern neighbors in his Guard uniform.
Women and older men tended to be polite, but the younger men were hostile, he said.
On many occasions, he said, he received signs of disrespect he knew from Iraq. Men made exaggerated spitting noises, and "they would raise their shoe at me to show me the bottom of their feet, or they would take off their shoe and wave it at me."
Perkins said that before last week's shooting, he had never seen Bualsafared or Ali, neither of whom lived in the apartment complex. But he believes others helped prod the men to come to his apartment looking for a fight.
In a telephone interview, Bualsafared said he and Ali were simply out for a walk with two women when they passed through Perkins' apartment complex. He and Ali told police Perkins came out of his apartment and confronted them for allegedly looking at him or his girlfriend.
"How would I know he was a soldier? I didn't know that until he told me before he shot me," said Bualsafared, a former DeKalb Technical College student who said he was visiting friends in Clarkston on spring break from his current studies at Penn State University.
Perkins, however, said a group of three men and a woman originally walked by him as he walked his girlfriend and her son to their car. He said he could hear people muttering obscenities and saying "there he is."
Perkins said he locked his girlfriend and her child in the car and went to get his gun. Both he and Bualsafared agree the group then left the area.
Perkins said two men returned and rushed him; Bualsafared said he and Ali were leaving in separate cars, but Ali stopped and got out when Perkins cursed at him.
In an argument that followed, Perkins said, he yelled "Soldier in the U.S. Army." Bualsafared said Perkins said, "I'm a soldier in the U.S. Army, I just came from Iraq," and Ali angrily replied, "I'm from Iraq."
Perkins said Ali said something about being an Iraqi and said he wasn't afraid of Perkins' .45 caliber automatic pistol.
Bualsafared said Perkins then fired. Perkins said he warned the men to stop and fired a warning shot, but they ran toward him until he fired several shots. He said Bualsafared made it to his front steps, a few feet from his door.
Bualsafared said the men were in the parking lot when Perkins shot him.
DeKalb police spokesman Michael Payne said a detective's report showed blood was found "just outside" Perkins' door.
Police at the scene arrested Perkins and charged him with aggravated assault. But after about 15 hours in jail, he was released when a magistrate's judge declined to sign a criminal warrant. Perkins is not now charged with a crime, Payne said.
On Thursday night, Ali was arrested by DeKalb police for criminal trespass, DeKalb jail records show. The arrest was apparently based on a complaint that he should not have been in Perkins' apartment complex at the time of the incident.
Perkins said he also obtained temporary court orders to keep the men away from him.
Bualsafared had not been charged Friday, he said. He said he spent a night in the hospital but was walking on his wounded leg. He was staying with a friend in Athens and planned to return soon to Penn State.
Yusof Burke, spokesman for the North Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he had been asked to look into the incident on behalf of the Arab men. He said they felt "unjustly accused."
Burke said he was unaware of Perkins' complaints about rude behavior by other Arab men in his apartment complex.
"It would be a shame if it did happen that way," Burke said. "If there's tensions like that, we'd definitely like to get involved to see what we can do to help the situation."
For his part, Perkins said he will not return to his girlfriend's apartment, to avoid another conflict. He is temporarily living with his mother in Sandy Springs, near his part-time job as a cook at a comedy club. He and his girlfriend plan to move to another apartment in the Clarkston area next month.
And he has volunteered to go back to Iraq.
He said joining the National Guard helped him straighten out after a series of scrapes with the law as a young man.
"I wear my values around my neck," he said, fingering his dog tags and breaking into tears. "Before, I didn't have any values."
Staff writer Anna Varela contributed to this article.
Did you already see this?
Sounds like this vet was provoked...
If a shooting is justified, you shouldn't aim for the leg. He either needs more time on the range, or some education in proper firearm usage.
DeKalb police spokesman Michael Payne said a detective's report showed blood was found "just outside" Perkins' door.
I'd prefer that a guy that put his life on the line be able to have his own home somewhere.
Sounds like this vet was provoked...
Yup.....good thing the lying raghead left some blood at the door.
Craig Perkins is a man I'd be proud to have as a neighbor.
Based on his training and experience I'm betting that he is a better shot than you could ever be.
If he shot him in the leg, you can bet he knows how to shoot. A cop would have put two bullets in the guy's chest.
Oh, the humanity! Send these clowns and their friends home in a pigskin sack.
If he is a good shot, that means that he showed very poor judgment in aiming for the leg. The judge let him off the hook, but a liberal prosecutor could argue that the fact that he just intended to wing one of the two men indicated that he knew that they were not a real threat. He might want to take that chance with a DeKalb County jury; I would not.
Yeah, things like painting over another case of SJS gone right or "prove" what a racist Spc Perkins is. Give us a break, the word of a Muslim can't be taken at face value unless he is threatening to kill you. And not then if he doesn't have all the advantages.
That was kinda what I was thinking too...
Yup. The cops arrested this guy...what do you want to bet they confiscated his gun? Now the girlfriend and her child are wide open to muslim revenge butchery while Perkins has to stay away.
Someone is guilty of something and since the authorities say it isn't the soldier, then the other guys need to be looked at, with an eye towards deportation.
Foreigners that engage in criminal or even less than criminal behavior should be shown the door. There should be almost a level of zero tolerance from guests, especially when they are shown to be hostile to our nation.
Sounds like Perkins was set up for a lawsuit.
Flyin Imaan take two.
I'm not surprised that CAIR is already jumping in. That will certainly bog things down.
Whilen our men in uniform are assigned to clear these thugs out in Iraq, they shouldn't have to put up with them in America when they are home.
In the article it says "Perkins said he warned the men to stop and fired a warning shot, but they ran toward him until he fired several shots"
But, I am glad he at least got a peace of this POS; to bad he didn't kill him.
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