Two Men Shot, One Fatally, Near New York City Mosque

The Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque in Queens.

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Two men were shot, one of them fatally, during an assault in broad daylight on Saturday in the New York City borough of Queens, authorities told BuzzFeed News.

According to multiple reports, the two men were Muslim and were shot after leaving their daily prayers.

The man killed was an imam or Muslim spiritual leader, according to NBC New York

The men were gunned down shortly before 2 p.m. ET at Liberty Avenue and 79th Street in the Ozone Park neighborhood, some two blocks away from the the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque, a New York Police Department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

A man in his 50s was killed, while another in his 60s was being treated at Jamaica Hospital, police said.

The NYPD spokesperson said they had no word yet on a motive.

The two men were wearing traditional Islamic clothing when they were shot, the New York Daily News reported.

Police sources told NBC that their preliminary investigation indicates a lone gunman may have targeted the two men as part of a robbery.

Following the attack, angry men gathered before local media to proclaim the incident a hate crime.

“That’s not what America is about,” local resident Khairul Islam told the Daily News. “We blame Donald Trump for this ... Trump and his drama has created Islamophobia.”

The newspaper reported the shooter was a tall, Hispanic man who was armed with a large handgun.

“We are devastated,” Kobir Chowdhury, president of a second neighborhood mosque, told the Daily News. “We needs to get to the bottom of this. We need to know if they did this just because of our religion.”

from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/2aUyaRh