"The Death of an Imam"

Jack Rodzik

March 3 2011

“The Death of An Imam”

248-974-8926

rodzikja@msu.edu

Film and Panel Discussion Bring Up New Perspective On Race and Authority

            EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State University students and guests gathered in Snyder Phillips Hall on Feb. 11 to take part in a panel discussion after watching the film “The Death of an Imam”, which focuses on media coverage regarding the controversial death of Dearborn resident Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah.

            This film brings about controversy behind the media coverage and police report of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah’s death, in which the actual story still remains quite unclear.The film features news clips of the incident in which Abdullah is considered a radical terrorist with no solid evidence to support the allegations.

            The police report stated that four FBI agents killed Abdullah, shooting him 21 times in self-defense after he shot at a police dog sent on him for robbing a Dearborn, Mich. warehouse.

            The panel held after the film screening was set up to feature a variety of professional opinions, allowing each panel member to dive into the matter with their personal perspective. The panel featured Salah Hassan, Associate Professor of the Department of English, Catherine Grosso, Assistant Professor of Law, Saeed Khan, visiting professor at James Madison and Dawud Walid, from the Council on American-Islamic Studies.

            One of the main points of panel discussion, brought up by Grosso, was about the disputable police report on the night of Abdullah’s death, Oct. 28, 2009. Records state Abdullah shot a dog that was sent on him and in defense the FBI agents fired back, whereas the untold news stories, which mainstream media failed to pick up, show records of the canine unit that was sent on him arriving at a veterinarian hospital at the same time that it was shot. The gun that shot the dog was also tested for fingerprints and DNA, nothing was ever found that traced back to Abdullah.

            This sheds light on the fact that even some of the highest credible organizations, the FBI, fails to keep accurate records at times. Erica Shekell, an MSU film student who transcribed the footage for “The Death of an Imam”, told she felt the mainstream media made the mistake of reporting the incident poorly.

            “It was interesting, when I was looking at clips online about FBI sending informants into Mosques, it’s a form of religious profiling. It was interesting to see that it wasn’t just this one event, it’s a problem,” Shekell said. “They swallowed the FBI’s side of the story.”

            Saeed Khan, who has consulted with British Broadcasting Company World and Time Magazine, who said the police report was “Interesting because it’s not just a series of facts, but also an editorial”.