Muslim rep ‘confident’ Chapel Hill killings over more than a parking space

Congress’s first Muslim member said Thursday morning he’s “confident” that the killings of three young Muslims in Chapel Hill, N.C., were about more than a parking space.

{mosads}”I am confident based on my review of the facts that the parking answer is certainly not the whole story,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said while appearing on CNN’s “New Day.”

He said that “there certainly are some facts to indicate that their religion may have been a factor.”

“What I want to say is that it’s prudent for us not to jump to a conclusion, but it’s also prudent for us to keep all options open, including the possibility that it was a bias-motivated crime,” he said.

Police have charged Craig Hicks in the shooting deaths of Deah Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19.

Authorities said on Wednesday that a “preliminary investigation” indicated that a dispute over a parking space had motivated the killings. A lawyer for Hick’s wife said something similar at a news conference.

The father of the two women who were killed, however, called it a “hate crime” and said his daughter had told him she had a “hateful neighbor.”

“It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” he told a local newspaper.