After more than a week of criminal investigation following a shooting outside the Islamic Center of Rhode Island (ICRI), in Providence, RI, Providence police Maj. David Lapatin was reticent to declare the incident a hate crime, stating “To say the mosque was targeted would be premature.”
Nevertheless, the “hate crime” narrative was how WPRI (here; here) and the rest of the local Rhode Island media uncritically framed the story—including The Providence Journal (here; here), The Boston Globe Rhode Island section, and The Patch. Nationally, CNN, and even internationally, the UK Guardian and UK Daily Mail, echoed this same narrative in their obsessive coverage of a presumed “Islamophobic shooting.”
That dubious narrative was fanned, immediately, by the ICRI’s resident “spiritual leader,” Imam Abdul Latif Sackor, in concert with the propagandized “assessment” by Hamas-linked CAIR , the Council on American Islamic Relations “a specially designated terrorist organization, and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case,” repeated in local RI media accounts (here; here).
I have just obtained the official Providence Police incident report (2023-00094602) on this case, and it is not consistent with the ubiquitous, uncritical “hate crime shooting” press narrative.
We learn that Dean Scott (aka “Mustafa”) Ramos was struck in the buttocks by one of four to five rounds fired at him while he was setting up tables of merchandise to sell outside the ICRI, Friday, November 17, 2023. Surveillance video footage from the mosque’s security cameras captured the shooter firing several rounds at Ramos. Three days later, Monday, November 20, 2023, Ramos, who had recovered from his superficial wounding, told a detective during a phone follow-up interview, “he was feeling better and confirmed that he had been shot one time.” Reiterating the ICRI/CAIR/ media narrative, Ramos insisted, “he still believed he was targeted due to his religion [Islam] and the [Muslim] clothing he was wearing.”
Returning, critically, to what must be the investigation of the key suspect in the shooting (per the surveillance video, other forensic evidence on scene, etc.), on p. 7 of the incident report, we see that a search warrant was executed, and items “belonging to Nasir Dupont DOB 2003,” were “photographed and seized.” Notably, Nasir is a Muslim name of Arabic origin derived from the Arabic word “nasir,” which means “to help, to aid, to defend.” Moreover, from publicly available records Nasir Dupont is a recidivist criminal, with a history that includes illegal gun possession, and narcotics (for example, fentanyl)-related crimes, who is currently imprisoned (records, here; here, here; here).
Dean Scott (aka “Mustaffa” ) Ramos, also has a serious criminal record having served 5-years (commuted from a 20-year sentence) for illegal manufacture and distribution of schedule I/II controlled, potentially addictive substances (examples of schedule I include, Heroin and Ecstasy; examples of schedule II include Fentanyl and OxyContin).
Given that the shooting victim Mustafa Ramos is a Muslim, and the suspected shooter, Nasir Dupont is also most likely a Muslim, while their criminal records include serious drug felony (both), and firearms (shooting suspect Nasir Dupont) convictions, the media chorus rush to judge the ICRI shooting incident an “Islamophobic hate crime”—egged on by the ICRI, CAIR, and Ramos—does not withstand, honest, objective scrutiny of the available evidence.
Indeed, more than a year later it is still not designated a hate crime, None of the local Rhode Island reporters who rushed to validate a CAIR-promoted “Islamophobic hate crime shooting” story, have exhibited any curiosity about why this shooting, 14-months later, has not been classified as a hate crime. Nor is there any indication these same “investigative reporters” have ever bothered to review the basic police incident report, and conduct the logical public criminal records follow-up investigation described herein.
Worse still, last February, 2024, a Rhode Island House resolution on “Islamophobia” was passed riveting on this manufactured, factitious “Islamophobic shooting,” introduced by Representatives Ajello, Ackerman, Tanzi, Sanchez, Felix, Potter, Cruz, Boylan, Blazejewski, and Shekarchi. The resolution, which relied upon the gullible, shoddy local reporting of this incident, even repeating the Providence Journal’s description of Mustafa Ramos as “a jovial man with a giant smile,” included this language:
“WHEREAS, Closer to home, Mustafa Ramos, ‘a jovial man with a giant smile,’ was setting up a table before prayers outside the Islamic Center in Providence, when he was shot by a man who had waited nearly half an hour to attack. It is believed that Mr. Ramos was a target based solely on his faith… RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to the Islamic Center of Rhode Island and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Mustafa Ramos c/o the Islamic Center in Providence, and Hisham Awartani c/o Brown University.”
Finally, there is added insult to the irony of this willfully deficient journalism, and misguided political pandering.
As I have documented, meticulously, since the 11/17/23 factitious “Islamophobic shooting” incident outside the ICRI mosque, inside, ICRI sermons have promoted hateful jihadism (just 2-days after the New Orleans, 1/1/25 vehicular jihad carnage), and virulent Islamic “religious” Antisemitism (here; here), and Christianophobia.
Links to key documents–
Dean Scott (aka “Mustafa” ) Ramos controlled substance imprisonment
Links to Nasir Dupont criminal records:
