Are Violent Interracial Crimes on the Rise?

On the morning of April 18, Kori Ali Muhammad stalked the streets of downtown Fresno and fatally shot three white men with a .357 revolver.

Before surrendering to police, he allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar” and expressed hatred toward white people and the government, according to Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer.

On social media, he referred to white people as “devils.” Earlier in the year, he released a rap album replete with violent, explicit, racially-charged lyrics, including referring to himself in one song as a “black soldier.”

Muhammad was reportedly convinced that there is a war going on between blacks and whites in America.

Is he right?

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Most crimes are committed intra-racially, meaning both victim and perpetrator are of the same race. But in the past few years, violent interracial crimes have been increasing across the country, and race is seemingly a motivating factor.

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— A white man was shot and killed in Northeast Portland on April 16 by an African-American gunman.

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Portland police said three suspects were last seen running southbound on 128th Avenue, crossing East Burnside Street. They were described as African-American males, ages 16 to 20 years old, wearing hooded sweatshirts and blue jeans.

There is no known motive for the murder.

— Trent Stutheit, a 29-year-old father, was shot to death in a parking lot in Omaha on Easter Sunday. Antoine C. Johnson, a 30-year-old black man, was accused of committing the murder, which appeared to be random.

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— On April 19, a trio of black hoodlums assaulted a Des Moines woman on a DART bus.

Security footage shows three young men slapping Tina Gravitt over and over again. “As they ran off and they were laughing,” Gravitt said. “It was really shocking.” Gravitt said the alleged assault came out of nowhere.

— On the morning of April 20, two white utility workers were shot to death while working in a residential area in St. Louis.

The shooter, who later turned the gun on himself, was identified as Clinton Willis, a 51-year-old black man with a long criminal history.

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— Nathaniel Ewing, a 20-year-old sophomore at OU, was gunned down on April 23 in the parking lot of the apartment complex outside the campus.

Ewing suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen and died at a local hospital the following day — which happened to be his birthday:

Police arrested 20-year-old Tyrek Ladarius Turner, 19-year-old Armani Ashanti Morgan and two unnamed 17-year-old males on a complaint of first degree murder.

Witnesses said he and another person were the targets of an attempted robbery at the complex.

— On April 24, a brave 94-year-old woman was left battered and bruised after fighting off a group of black thugs who snatched her purse at a Miami mall.

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— On the morning of April 26, two elderly woman were out for a morning walk on a Sacramento area high school track, when an 18-year-old black man brutally attacked them, killing one and injuring the other.

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The suspect, Neven Glen Butler, was arrested several hours later after he assaulted a 92-year-old woman at a healthcare center.

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Were all these crimes random?

Maybe not. A study at Vanderbilt University found that the elderly victim of rape “was more often white and the assailant more often black,” and “the rapists are motivated by anger, possibly racially related.”

— Monday morning, a gunman fired on paramedics in East Dallas, hitting and critically injuring a firefighter.

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The suspect and another man were found dead inside a home Dallas Police searched after the shooting. The suspect was a black male with a long rap sheet who once led the local Black Panthers.

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Something terrible appears to be going on that may not be quite as random as we think. Maybe it’s time we have a serious national conversation about it.