Raghe Abdi shot by Police…

The Australian Federal Police has played down suggestions of a terror threat linked to the shooting of a man by Queensland police officers late last week.

Twenty two year old Raghe Abdi was shot multiple times by police and died at the scene of the incident on the Logan Motorway last Thursday morning after he was seen wandering dangerously among peak-hour traffic when armed with a knife. 

At the initial joint press conference held by Queensland Police and the Australian Federal Police (ADP), it was revealed Abdi was “known to” a joint counter-terrorism squad and was previously suspected to have been “influenced by Islamic State”.

Yet a subsequent press conference, AFP deputy commissioner Ian McCartney told reporters about Abdi’s history but said there was no reason to be concerned about a terror threat.

“Can I reassure the public today there’s no specific or ongoing threat in relation to this matter,” he said.

When asked why information about Abdi’s background had been prematurely released to the public on Thursday, or whether it was a police tactic of “throwing shade” on the victim of a police shooting, Queensland Police assistant commissioner Tracy Linford denied this was the case, explaining that police had to “pursue all avenues of inquiry”.

“The background is important because we’ve got to work out what it was that caused him (Abdi) to be there in the first instance.

“At this point in time we’re not calling this a terrorist event,” she said.

To me, this is clearly the case of the police jumping the gun, so to speak, as they couldn’t blurt out details of the deceased man’s  alleged previous history quickly enough, revealing that he had previously come under the influence of ISIS.

Statements like this, especially when made prematurely, are inflammatory and immediately place our entire community under the microscope, as public ignorance wrongly associates the 99.99 percent of ‘good’ Muslims around the world with Islamic State, whose deadly actions and extremist principles in no way reflect our own mindsets.

There was no need for this information about Abdi’s past to be revealed as early as it was – certainly no good could have come from it – except to alarm the community at large and unfairly spotlight Muslims throughout Australia.

On April 28-29, 1996, 29 year old Tasmanian native Martin Bryant shot at and killed 35 people and injured 23 others in one of the world’s deadliest shooting sprees at Port Arthur.

And on March 15 last year, another Australian Brenton Tarrant shot 53 people dead and wounded several dozens of others during attacks on two separate mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

On neither occasion, did the police make any early revelation as to the mass murderers’ religion or that they were terrorists or had terrorist links, so it just again shows that there are two sets of rules and that the Muslim community is fair game in the eyes of the media….especially when the police may be spoonfeeding them uninvestigated information.

That is, if there is a Muslim involved in a violent crime, highlight their religion and suggest it’s an act of terror – and even if they are later proven wrong, when does the media ever issue an apology?

As it turns out, Queensland Police are now investigating whether there is any link between Abdi and the double murder of  an 87-year-old man and an 86-year-old woman at their home in the outer southern Brisbane suburb of Parkinson.

 The couple’s lifeless bodies were found just hours prior to the police incident which claimed Abdi’s life.

The Homicide Squad will now comb through the evidence to ascertain whether Abdi played any role in the double murder, and if the young Somalian was responsible, then that will be a matter between himself and Allah SWT on Judgement Day.

If he wasn’t involved, or if he was responsible but was suffering from any form of mental impairment, may Allah SWT grant mercy on his soul.

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