Zemir Begic was a teenager when he and his family fled Bosnia in the aftermath of a bloody civil war. In America, he found work, friends and love before a pack of thugs beat him to death with hammers on a city street in St. Louis early Sunday.
The horrific attack occurred in southwest St. Louis, just 20 miles from Ferguson, where a police shooting of a black man and a grand jury's subsequent decision not to indict the officer sparked violent riots. Police have said the murder of Begic, 32, does not appear to be racially motivated, and have arrested three teens and were looking for one or possibly two more. The married immigrant was driving his car when the teens approached at a traffic light and began striking it with hammers, prompting him to get out and confront them, according to police.
The attack has left St. Louis's 70,000-member Bosnian community reeling and calling for more police protection.
“We come from Bosnia because we were getting killed and our homes and families were getting destroyed,” Denisa Begic, his 23-year-old sister, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Never in my life did I think he would get murdered.”
On Monday evening, Robert Mitchell, 17, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death, KMOV-TV reported. Mitchell turned himself in late Sunday after 15- and 16-year-old suspects were taken into custody. Despite the proximity to the racially-charged Ferguson incident, which has generated national headlines, police insist there is no parallel.
"Investigators don't believe the incident is in any way related to Ferguson," St. Louis Police spokeswoman Schron Jackson told FoxNews.com. "The incident is not being investigated as a hate crime."
Several hours after Begic died at an area hospital, members of the city's close-knit Bosnian community held protests that seemed patterned after those sparked in Ferguson by the death of Michael Brown and the decision not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.
“We’re going to have a little bit of fun blocking our own traffic,” Adnan Esmerovic, 27, told the Washington Post. “In Ferguson, they want to make a protest about nothing and yet that attracted attention across the nation. We’re just trying to keep more police down here because of these little thugs.”
St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson addressed protesters Sunday and pledged to crack down on crime in the area, but denied that Begic was killed because of his ethnicity.