Vero Beach, Fl. - March 24, 2022: The suspect in a murder at a Seminole County mosque was shot and wounded Thursday afternoon in Vero Beach by Indian River County Deputies.
The dramatic series of events began early Thursday morning at the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford where a 59 year old Iraqi immigrant who served as a maintenance worker at the mosque was found bludgeoned to death. Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said when deputies arrived at the scene they found the victim near a shovel covered in blood.
“Our suspect grabbed the shovel and used the shovel, a lot of damage to the face and extremities, " said Sheriff Lemma. "You can see that there was a lot of damage done.”
The murder victim’s father had recently died and he was planning to return to Iraqi for the funeral. He was training the suspect to temporarily replace him. Sheriff Lemma said there had been reports of personal conflicts between the two, and the murder is not believed to be related to terrorism.
“One of the most important messages to get out is that the victim and the suspect were known to one another," said Sheriff Lemma. "This is not a situation of a random act that somebody wanted to target a mosque. This was clearly a transition relationship that had some friction in the past.”
The suspect has been identified as 38 year old Ahmed Raslan who authorities said was born in Egypt but has lived most of his life in the U.S. He was seen leaving the mosque yesterday morning in the murder victim’s vehicle.
Around noon Thursday that vehicle was identified by license plate readers in Indian River County where IRC Sheriff Eric Flowers said 2 of his deputies, knowing that the vehicle was connected to the mosque murder, executed a felony traffic stop in the parking lot of the Vero Beach Sam’s Club
The suspect was acting crazy and got out of the vehicle, speaking a foreign language, said Sheriff Flowers. At one point he reached into his pocket and pulled out his hands pointing his fingers at the deputies in the shape of a gun
“When you see the body camera video you see the way that this guy is acting, I mean he wanted to be shot. The way that he pulls his fingers out, points them at the deputies, the idea that they didn’t shoot him when he did that really is great control, when he dove back into the vehicle they had no choice.”
Raslan was shot 3 times in the upper torso. He was taken to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Fort Pierce where he was in stable condition as of Friday morning.