September 21, 2001: White Supremacist Shoots Texas Man as Part of Hate-Motivated Killing Spree

Mark Anthony Stroman, a member of a white supremacist prison gang, shoots Rais Bhuiyan in the face with a shotgun while Bhuiyan is working at a Dallas gas station and convenience store. Bhuiyan is a former Air Force pilot from Bangladesh. As Bhuiyan will later recall the incident, Stroman bursts into his store wearing a hat, sunglasses, and a bandanna, and carrying a derringer—a small pistol modified to fire shotgun cartridges. Bhuiyan believes he is going to be robbed and tells Stroman: “Don’t shoot me please. Take all the money.” Instead of robbing Bhuiyan, Stroman asks, “Where are you from?” Bhuiyan, nonplussed, says, “Excuse me?” and Stroman shoots him. Bhuiyan, pouring blood, falls to the floor and Stroman leaves. Bhuiyan is able to get help by flagging down a nearby ambulance. Initially, he is discharged from the hospital after only one day because he lacks health insurance; for months he sleeps on friends’ couches and relies on physicians’ samples for medication, including painkillers and eye drops. He is eventually able to have his right eye operated on, but loses much of the vision in it. Three dozen shotgun pellets remain in his face. He will say: “I didn’t do anything wrong. I was not a threat to him. I couldn’t believe someone would just shoot you like that.” Stroman will later tell a prison inmate that he is engaged in a killing spree against Muslims and Middle Easterners (see September 15, 2001), and says he is murdering them in revenge for the 9/11 attacks (see October 4, 2001 and After). [Push Junction, 7/6/2011; Independent, 7/9/2011; New York Times, 7/18/2011; CBS News, 7/18/2011] Bhuiyan will attempt to intervene to prevent Stroman, convicted of murdering a store owner weeks after he shot him, from being executed (see (July 18, 2011)). [New York Times, 7/18/2011] That effort will fail, and Stroman will be executed (see July 20, 2011).