Michael Paul Adams had reportedly been released from prison for 48 hours when he saw 17-year-old Elijah Al-Amin at a Peoria, Ariz., K-gas station. The 27-year-old, who has a lengthy criminal history, slit the teen’s neck with a pocket knife because he was listening to rap music.
According to reports Adams and Al-Amin didn’t know one another.
Court records indicate Adams told local law enforcement he felt threatened by the music, not Al-Almin, and explained he thinks people who listen to or play rap music are a threat to him and the community. Adams said he was being “proactive, not reactive” because rap music makes him feel “unsafe.”
Al-Amin’s death is eerily reminiscent to Jordan Davis’ November 2012 murder at the hands of Michael Dunn. On November, 23, Davis was riding around with his friends in Florida listening to rap music before they stopped at a local gas station. When Dunn left the station, he alleged to have felt threatened by the teens and their music and shot off several rounds into the vehicle, killing Davis. Dunn was later charged, convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole, including an additional 90 years.
Davis was killed just nine months after Trayvon Martin.
Al-Amin’s father described his son, who would’ve turned 18 in two weeks, as “a good kid,”
“He wanted to be hotel management, he wanted to move to Seattle, he wanted to move to different places,” Al-Amin’s dad said to KVOA.
Adams is being held on $1 million bond.
