Oh Lord! More violence in the St. Louis area! What has America done to it’s youth, where they will just beat people to death!!!???Oh Lord, we storm heaven with our prayers that America return to you and your ways…. Zemir Begic was a teenager when he and his family fled Bosnia in the aftermath of a bloody civil war. In America, he found work, friends and love before a pack of thugs beat him to death with hammers on a city street in St. Louis as his terrified fiancee watched early Sunday.
Begic, his wife of six months and a friend were surrounded by a group a teenagers who began banging on there car with hammers, according to authorities and witnesses. When Begic stepped out of his car to confront them, the teens pounced on him, pummeling him with the hammers and leaving him fatally injured. He died hours later at St. Louis University Hospital.
“The last thing he did before he actually died was pull me out of the way and put himself in front of me, basically giving up his life for me,” Begic’s fiancee, Arijana Mujkanovic, told KSDK.
The attack occurred in southwest St. Louis, just 20 miles from Ferguson, where a police shooting of a black man and a grand jury’s subsequent decision not to indict the officer sparked violent riots. Police have said the murder of Begic, 32, does not appear to be racially motivated, and have arrested three teens and were looking for one or possibly two more. The married immigrant was driving his car when the teens approached at a traffic light and began striking it with hammers, prompting him to get out and confront them, according to police.
The attack has left St. Louis’s 70,000-member Bosnian community reeling and calling for more police protection.
“We come from Bosnia because we were getting killed and our homes and families were getting destroyed,” Denisa Begic, his 23-year-old sister, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Never in my life did I think he would get murdered.”
On Monday evening, Robert Mitchell, 17, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death, KMOV-TV reported. Mitchell turned himself in late Sunday after 15- and 16-year-old suspects were taken into custody. Despite the proximity to the racially-charged Ferguson incident, which has generated national headlines, police insist there is no parallel.
“Investigators don’t believe the incident is in any way related to Ferguson,” St. Louis Police spokeswoman Schron Jackson told FoxNews.com. “The incident is not being investigated as a hate crime.”
Several hours after Begic died at an area hospital, members of the city’s close-knit Bosnian community held protests that seemed patterned after those sparked in Ferguson by the death of Michael Brown and the decision not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.
“We’re going to have a little bit of fun blocking our own traffic,” Adnan Esmerovic, 27, told the Washington Post. “In Ferguson, they want to make a protest about nothing and yet that attracted attention across the nation. We’re just trying to keep more police down here because of these little thugs.”
St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson addressed protesters Sunday and pledged to crack down on crime in the area, but denied that Begic was killed because of his ethnicity.
“There is no indication that the gentleman last night was targeted because he was Bosnian,” Dotson said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “There’s no indication that they knew each other.”
Police said Begic was hit in the head, face, mouth and body early Sunday morning around 1:15 a.m. at an intersection in southwest St. Louis and left to die on the street. Suad Nuranjkovic, 49, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he and Begic were heading home from a bar on Gravois Avenue when the teens began banging on the car.
Nuranjkovic said he got out of the passenger seat of the car and hid in a nearby parking lot during the attack.
“I was afraid that if one of them had a gun, they were going to shoot me, so I didn’t know what to do,” he told the newspaper.
Unlike the incident in Ferguson, the killing prompted members of St. Louis’ Bosnian community to call for a greater police presence.
“We’re just angry because we’re trying to protect our community,” said Mirza Nukic, 29, who was among 50 people who briefly blocked the intersection where Begic was killed.
Seldin Dzananovic, 24, said the teens with the hammers confronted him farther north on Gravois Ave about an hour before the attack on Begic, but he was able to fight them off, only suffering cuts to the hands and neck.
Begic and his family arrived in the United States from Bosnia in 1996, first moving to Utica, N.Y., before living in Iowa and Phoenix. He moved to St. Louis months ago to marry a woman whose family lives there.
Those who knew Begic said singing was his passion and that he “loved America.”
Denisa Begic said Zemir’s funeral would be in Iowa. A crowd-funding site has been set up to help finance the funeral. As of midday Monday, nearly $10,000 has been raised. On the page, his grieving sister wrote of her love for her brother.
“I will forever have a big piece of my heart destroyed,” Denisa Begic wrote. “My big brother is gone, never coming back to us. [I] wish this was a terrible dream. He was a great brother, son, husband and helped anyone. I want my brother back. He always protected me.”
Read God’s Word today………….
…20“For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. 21“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. 22“You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.…
You sit and testify against your brother and slander your own mother’s son. Isaiah 19:2
“I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian– brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. Micah 7:6
For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law– a man’s enemies are the members of his own household. Matthew 10:35
For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law– Matthew 10:36
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Mark 13:12
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. Luke 12:53
They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
the brother shall.
Matthew 10:34-36 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send …
Matthew 24:10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and …
Micah 7:5,6 Trust you not in a friend, put you not confidence in a guide: keep …
Zechariah 13:3 And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then …
Mark 13:12,13 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father …
Luke 12:51-53 Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, No; …
Luke 21:16,17 And you shall be betrayed both by parents, and brothers, and kinfolks, …
the children.
2 Samuel 16:11 And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, …
2 Samuel 17:1-4 Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve …
Job 19:19 All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.
