A 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Peoria, Arizona, on July 4 by a man who told police he did it because the teen’s rap music made him feel ‘unsafe’.
Michael Paul Adams, 27, was charged with the first-degree premeditated murder of Elijah Al-Amin, whose throat was slit at around 1:42 a.m. at a Circle K convenience store.
Adams, a white man, lunged at the black teen from behind as he stood by a soda machine, stabbed him in the back with a pocketknife and slit his throat.
Al-Amin ran out of the store before collapsing underneath the gas pump canopy, where police began CPR.
Elijah Al-Amin, 17, was killed on July 4 by a man who told police he did it because the teen’s rap music made him feel ‘unsafe’
Michael Paul Adams (right), 27, was charged with the first-degree premeditated murder for slaying the teen in an unprovoked attack. He is seen in court
Adams had just been released from the Arizona State Prison Complex in Yuma two days before the cold-blooded murder
He was taken to hospital, but died at 2:05 a.m., authorities said.
Adams was arrested on 67th Avenue near the Circle K, where he told an officer he was ‘involved’ in the heinous stabbing after being found with blood on his body and clothes.
He told police he stabbed the boy because he heard him listening to rap music in his car in the parking lot before entering the store.
According to court documents, Adams yelled at detectives that the teen ‘did not do anything to threaten him,’ but that he did feel threatened by the music.
He needed to be ‘proactive rather than reactive,’ because he had been attacked before by people who listened to the genre, police records said.
Adams was charged with first-degree murder and is being held at Fourth Avenue Jail in lieu of $1 million bond. He is expected to appear in court July 15.
He had just been released from the Arizona State Prison Complex in Yuma two days before, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections.
He had previously faced numerous charges, including aggravated assault of a correctional officer, shoplifting, assault with a weapon and marijuana violation, according to Maricopa County Superior Court records.
Al-Amin’s throat was slit at around 1:42 a.m. on July 4 at a Circle K convenience store in Peoria
Peoria police found the 17-year-old outside of the store, lying face down by the fuel pumps
The cruelly-slain teenager would have turned 18 in two weeks
His lawyer, Jacie Cotterell, said her client was ‘set up for failure’ because he was unable to get the mental health resources he required upon his release, the Arizona Republic reported.
She said he needed to see a mental health counselor but he was not given a way to access those resources.
‘To be specific, he was given resources, he wasn’t given means to get to those resources,’ Cotterell said.
‘This is a disabled person,’ she said during his initial court hearing, AZ Family reported. ‘And he’s been released into the world, and left to fend for himself. And two days later, this is where we are.’
But Bill Lamoreaux, a spokesman with the Arizona Department of Corrections, said Adams ‘was not designated seriously mentally ill,’ according to USA Today.
The teen’s father, Rahim Al-Amin, told 12 News in a tearful interview that his son had ‘so many dreams,’ and that he wanted to move to Seattle and work in hotel management.
He would have turned 18 in two weeks.
The teen’s father, Rahim Al-Amin, told 12 News in a tearful interview that his son had ‘so many dreams’ and that he was ‘a very good kid, always willing to help’
Al-Amin, seen in Facebook photos, was a rising senior at Apollo High School and had been working at Subway and Taco Bell to save up for a car, his mom told Fox 10
Many social media users are outraged at the suspect’s mental illness defense. Adams is seen in a Facebook photo from 2017
The heart-broken father said his son had finished working his shift at Subway at 11:30 p.m. and went to his girlfriend’s house, but he was expecting him home later.
‘Two o’clock came, three o’clock came, four o’clock came, I kept calling, calling, calling, texting, texting, texting, and I wasn’t getting a response. I just had a feeling that something wasn’t right,’ Al-Amin said.
He only found out what happened hours later from his son’s girlfriend and after calling the hospital.
‘He was a good kid, very good kid, always willing to help kids, help people in general,’ the dad told 12 News.
The boy’s mother, Serina Rides, told Fox 10 her son was a rising senior at Apollo High School and had been working at Subway and Taco Bell to save up for a car.
‘I got a call from [Al-Amin’s] father, saying, “Something’g wrong, this is not like Elijah, he’s not home yet,”‘ Rides said.
‘Out of the blue, somebody’s going to do this to you – I can’t understand.’
‘My last words to him was, “Elijah, I love you,” [and] he said, “I love you too, mom”,’ Rides told the Fox news station. ‘Those were his last words to me and I’m at peace with that.’
The grieving mother said she believes Adams and his lawyer are ‘hiding behind mental illness’ as an excuse for racist motivations for the killing.
‘There’s no excuse for this,’ Rides said, adding that she is ‘so numb and hurt to the core of my soul’.
‘But I have to stay focused because I know that’s what he would want and to make sure justice is served for him.’
Social media users have also said mental illness is being used as an excuse for deadly racism, flooding Twitter with the hashtag #JusticeforElijah.
Democratic 2020 hopeful Cory Booker weighed in on Twitter, calling for justice for the slain teen
Another person tweeted that ‘this is a racial issue, not a mental health issue’ along with the trending hashtag
Another Twitter user believes a black man who killed a white man for listening to country music could not use mental illness as a defense
People have been paying their respects for the 17-year-old on Twitter while questioning whether mental health issues would be brought up if the suspect and the victim’s races were reversed.
Democratic 2020 hopeful Cory Booker tweeted: ‘Another one of our children has been murdered in a heinous and unprovoked way – the DOJ must investigate this hate crime immediately.’
In an another poignant tweet, someone wrote: ‘Young black teens are being murdered in the US for wearing hoodies, playing with toys, listening to rap music, standing outside a store. This is a racial issue, not mental health issue. These people are white supremacists and terrorists.’
Another person commented: ‘if a black kid killed a 17 year old white boy for listening to country music, they wouldnt say the black man is mentally ill. STOP using mental illness as an excuse for racism!!! and you’re painting an awful picture for people who actually have mental illnesses #JusticeForElijah.’
Areanna Ivery, who worked with the teen at Taco Bell for a year, said they bonded over his passion for rap.
‘He talked about rap music all the time. He loved rap artists,’ she told AZ Family.
‘He just always said that rap artists spoke to him, that [rap] just gave him a sense of purpose, that he went through a lot of the things that [the artists] went through.’