The confrontation began when Quinnell approached Mohammad and girlfriend from behind as they walked into the Walmart around 3 a.m. last Wednesday. Quinnell asked Mohammad if he was Muslim or from the Middle East. Mohammad replied no, but that didn’t stop Quinnell from firing his gas-powered pellet gun at close range at Mohammad, while saying, “n—– with a white girl.” Quinnell fired at Mohammad 19 more times, but at no point did Mohammad fire or even remove his licensed .45-caliber Taurus pistol from its holster.
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t do it,” Mohammed said to the Tampa Bay Times, while recovering at his Tampa home two days after the attack. “I couldn’t blow this guy away for something he could change later in life. I’m not going to decide this man’s fate.”
Authorities released surveillance video of the shooting, as well as, photographs of the suspect, and arrested Quinnell after two days of searching. Quinnell’s own mother led police to where he was hiding out in a Comfort Inn in Land O’ Lakes, Fla. He was charged with aggravated assault and given a $20,000 bail. However, authorities say they have enough to charge Quinnell, who has been arrested on numerous other occasions for battery and violent threats, with a hate crime, elevating the charge to a first-degree felony.
Today, Mohammad was scheduled to have the two pellets — one embedded in his forehead on the left side and the other just under his jaw — removed.
Mohammad isn’t Muslim or Middle Eastern. His parents are from Trinidad and he is American, having been born and raised in Tampa. He does, however, possess restraint and control few of us, myself included, would have been able to maintain while being shot at close range by a raving racist. After taking two pellets to the neck and head, Mohammad can be seen watching his assailant flee and noticing a bystander who could have been hit if Mohammad had fired after a fleeing Quinnell.
