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Muslim family terrified after shooting targets Florida home following Paris attacks

Justin Carissimo
New York
Tuesday 17 November 2015 17:23 GMT
Amir Elmasri speaks to local media.
Amir Elmasri speaks to local media.

A Muslim family home in Orlando, Florida was the target of gunfire on Sunday.

Amir and Nehal Elmasri told WKMG-TV that they weren't home during the shooting but when they returned home, there were bullet holes in their garage door. One bullet had traveled through the door, a wall and into a dresser inside a bedroom.

Mr Elmasri told the station, as well as police, that he was concerned that his family was targeted in the wake of the Paris terror attacks because they are Muslim.

The three hour-long attacks in Paris took the lives of 129 people and injured more than 300. Isis has claimed responsibility for the massacre.

“You go and read what Islam teaching is, unbias, just the books about Islam or the Koran translated and you will see, it is not the teaching,” he told WKMG-TV.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department does not have any suspects in the case and has not ruled the shooting a hate crime, WFTV-9 reports.

“We are as peaceful as any American family,” he told the station. “I mean, why would you shoot at my garage?”

The couple has four children and has lived in the states for 32 years.

Mr Elmasri said that now his family feels unsafe: “Why somebody is shooting at us, what did we do?”

“They are making my religion bad. The people who do it happen to be Muslims, but with the wrong idea,” he said. "So just like the sick people here who shoot in theaters, they happen to be sick, but we don’t blame it on the religion.”

A St Petersburg mosque recieved threats on Friday. A caller said they would "firebomb" the place of worship and that the Paris attacks were the "last straw," the Associated Press reports.

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