Immigrant Murders in Houston:
3 charged with capital murder
R S Shankar
As officials arrested three men -- two of them in their late teens -- in the murders of five immigrants working at Houston's convenience stores, the officials sought to dispel the notion that racism was involved in the attacks. "Who is killing the immigrants," many South Asians had wondered last week following five murders in one single week.
But many in the Indian, Pakistani and Lebanese community are convinced that robbers believe that foreigners, particularly from South Asia, are easy targets. They say that hundreds of shops run by immigrants are robbed every year. They also say that if a study of the attacks is conducted, it might show that immigrants' shops are attacked more frequently.
"They think Indians and Pakistanis are very simple people, we never retaliate," said a store owner.
Initially, authorities believed, based on eyewitness accounts, that one man might have been responsible for the attacks on two shops. Now they are convinced there were three men and they acted independently of each other.
Robert Lee Woodard, 19, Exzavier Lamont Stevenson, 31, and Steven Ray Tatum, 19, who were arrested over the weekend have been charged with capital murder and are being held without bail.
Woodard is charged in the killing of Achamma and Thankachan Mathai, the couple that owned a Conoco store. They were murdered on February 12. Eyewitnesses told the police the killer lost his cool when Thankachan's hands shook and he could not open the cash box.
Stevenson is charged in the killing of Khalid Masroor and Syed Mehdi, Pakistani immigrants, who worked at the Phillips 66 store.
And Tatum faces charges in connection with the murder of Jamal Labdi, a Lebanese clerk whose brother is a police officer in Houston.
Community leaders have met police officers to ask for more protection and patrolling.
The community is not sure if would-be-robbers are deterred by the arrest of the three men.
"Many perpetrators don't set out to kill somebody," said the owner of a chain of stores who asked for anonymity. "So they think their situation is different, and naturally they are not worried by the arrest of the three men. But we know a lot of things go wrong and there is blood, murder."
Many people said the media often focused on successful South Asian immigrants or rich immigrants who run into problem with law. But the stories about hard-working, poorer immigrants did not find place in newspapers or magazines.
There is, at a subconscious level, resentment against all South Asian immigrants. That makes it even easier for the perpetrators to attack a South Asian immigrant, said several workers.
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