Crying Holy War

Joe Malinconico of The Star-Ledger relays the most detailed description yet given by New Jersey authorities about last week’s murder of a family of Egyptian Coptic Christians in Jersey City, whose funeral yesterday errupted into a brawl between Christian mourners and Muslims who attended to pay their respects. According to the office of the county prosecutor handling the case, none of the family’s Coptic Christian artifacts were desecrated, and the Coptic Cross tattoos on the inside wrist of each family member weren’t defaced as many earlier reports had stated. After the funeral fighting, and some crass but unsurprising calls for Americans to react against the “jihadis” in our midst, authorities seem eager to cut off speculation about religious motives for the crime, positing the killings as part of a failed robbery. Clergy members are also urging people to be patient as the police investigate, and relatives of the family in Egypt said that they don’t believe the crime was connected to religion, but rather “‘the brutality of American society.'”