No, he’s a grandson of Malcom X, one of the founders of the Black Muslims, and the whole family had bizarre Muslim names.
I thought it was Malik who set fire to his grandmother, but it was Malcom, a grandson from another one of Malcom X’s daughters (although his fatherhood is unclear), who was angry at his grandmother, the widow of Malcom X, and set fire to her in the foyer of her apartment. She died a few weeks later, and he served only a few months in jail and then I think had some mental health treatment type of probation.
Malcom himself died in a mysterious beating in Mexico City in 2013.
None of the family has turned out well.
MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities have arrested two waiters suspected of being involved in last week’s beating death of Malcolm Shabazz, the 28-year-old grandson of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X.
Prosecutors said police were seeking at least two other people believed to have participated in the attack on Shabazz. Shabazz died Thursday of blunt-force trauma injuries.
Prosecutor Rodolfo Fernando Rios said The Palace Bar employees David Hernandez Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Perez de Jesus would be charged with aggravated robbery and homicide.
STORY: Malcolm Shabazz’s family to claim remains in Mexico
Rios said there was no indication of a racial motivation in the attack on Shabazz, who was assaulted after he drank with a friend at the Palace bar on Garibaldi Plaza.
Martin Suarez, a labor activist who was in Mexico with Shabazz, said Friday that the fight broke out after the bar’s owner insisted that Shabazz pay a $1,200 bill. Suarez said he found Shabazz injured outside the bar and took him to a hospital, where Shabazz died.
Many of the bars around Garibaldi Plaza are notorious for overcharging customers, particularly foreigners, often on the pretext that customers must pay for time spent talking with female employees.
Rios said Shabazz’s body had not been claimed by relatives or the U.S. Embassy. He said Mexican authorities were dealing with transporting it back to the U.S.
Shabazz spent four years in a juvenile jail for setting a 1997 Yonkers, N.Y., fire that killed his grandmother, Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz. Betty Shabazz was seriously injured in the blaze and died from those injuries three weeks later. Malcolm Shabazz was 12 at the time of the fire. He had other legal trouble throughout his short life and spoke of the difficulty he had in establishing his own identity in the long shadow of his grandfather’s legacy...