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Community Reacts to Slaying During Pick-up Basketball Game
The community soul-searching continues and more details have emerged in the wake of the basketball court argument that ended with the fatal shooting last week of 23-year-old Hassan Zeidan.
Fadi Faraj, 34, is in custody at Wayne County Jail as he awaits trial on first-degree murder and felony firearm charges.
The incident happened Thursday on the basketball court behind Riverside Academy West in the city’s east side. According to witnesses and investigators, Faraj and Zeidan began arguing because Faraj didn’t like how close Zeidan was guarding him. The situation escalated and Zeidan punched Faraj in the face, prompting Faraj to retrieve a handgun from his car and allegedly shoot Zeidan several times.
At Faraj’s arraignment Friday in 19th District Court detectives argued against issuing bond because of the brutal nature of the alleged shooting, saying that Faraj, still bruised from the beating he suffered at the hands of bystanders afterward, continued firing shots after the first bullet sent Zeidan to the ground, according to published reports.
For Faraj, once celebrated as an up-and-coming professional boxer, the incident carries shades of irony. In 2007 Faraj’s uncle, Jawad Bazzi, a gas station proprietor, was fatally shot in an argument with a rival gas station owner over gasoline prices. The incident, which was over a three-cent price drop by the shooter, received heavy media coverage because of the seemingly trivial nature of the dispute and its decidedly grave outcome.
Now, four years later, Faraj is making headlines for an alleged murder that similarly has community members asking why.
“What courtside disagreement could have been so important that its resolution required killing?” questioned an editorial in the Arab American News.
Faraj’s former boxing manager, Haroon Mihtar, on Tuesday said he was shocked when he learned his former charge had allegedly killed a man.
“I feel comfortable saying that he did have some issues and I think that maybe the fact that he was beat up by a younger kid, and he’s past his athletic prime, I think that might have embarrassed him,” said Mihtar.
“(But) Fadi was generally a good guy, nice guy. I never expected anything like this.”
Reached by telephone Tuesday, Zeidan’s mother declined to comment for this story.
“Not now,” she said between sobs. “I cannot do it right now.”
In the community at large, Arab-American leaders have taken the shooting as a clarion call to action.
Dr. Adnan Hammad leads a crisis intervention team for the nonprofit organization Arab Community Center for Economic & Social Services, also known as ACCESS.
“We’ve been in contact with both families (Zeidan’s and Faraj’s) because really they’re both victims, as is the overall community,” he said.
Hammad is using Zeidan’s shooting as the impetus for a symposium with community stakeholders that is tentatively aimed for September.
The purpose, said Hammad, is to start a dialogue on the issues facing local youths.
“There are so many factors that kids face today that were not issues twenty or even ten years ago,” he said. “We need to look at how we got here and we need to take these experiences and use them to make positive steps in the right direction.”
Imad Hamad, executive director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee Michigan, also is trying to organize a roundtable of community leaders. Hamad said incidents like Zeidan’s death highlight a common concern for local parents
“I’m a father,” he said. “Stuff like this — violence, drugs — it worries all parents. We need to be talking about what we can do to make situations like this not happen again.”
J. Patrick Pepper
Press & Guide