U.S. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, along with a coalition of civil rights and Muslim activists, again is calling for a Justice Department investigation into last fall’s shooting of a Detroit imam by FBI agents. The cleric’s long-awaited autopsy report was released Monday.
Conyers and the others will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. today at 220 Bagley in Detroit to reiterate a request that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division investigate the death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah. Abdullah died from 21 gunshot wounds, according to the autopsy.
The autopsy was completed in November, but the report’s release was put off until Monday at Dearborn police request because the incident remains under investigation. The shooting happened at a Dearborn warehouse.
The investigation is likely to take several more weeks, Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said Monday, noting the results are to be sent to Attorney General Mike Cox.
Wayne County Medical Examiner Carl Schmidt said Monday it was only the second time a police department had asked his office not to release an autopsy report. The other case involved the still-unsolved killing of 5-year-old Nevaeh Buchanan of Monroe last year.
But Abdullah’s autopsy still left many questions.
According to the report, when an investigator from the Medical Examiner’s Office arrived at the scene of the shooting on Oct. 28, the body of Abdullah, 53, was found on the floor of a semi-trailer full of flat-screen TVs with his wrists handcuffed behind his back.
The FBI told the investigator that when “officers arrived, officers asked to see his hands, and they informed him that if he didn’t comply, they were going to send a dog in.” Agents said they opened fire after Abdullah shot the dog.
It’s unclear how many agents shot Abdullah, or how many times he might have returned fire. The report shows that Abdullah was shot 20 times with one bullet causing two wounds.
“He died virtually instantaneously,” Schmidt said, noting that it would be difficult to tell what position Abdullah was in when he was struck.
Andrew Arena, special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI office, has said agents acted appropriately in the two-year investigation of Abdullah and during the raid. Agents sought to arrest the cleric and 10 other people on suspicion of dealing in stolen goods.