A Texas inmate was executed Wednesday night for going on a shooting rampage that he said was in retaliation for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Mark Anthony Stroman, 41, was lethally injected at a state prison in Huntsville shortly after his final court appeal was rejected and even as a shooting victim campaigned against his execution.
Stroman targeted three separate convenience stories in Dallas beginning on Sept. 15, 2001, killing two men and injuring a third. He shot at people he thought were Middle Eastern –viewing their deaths as “patriotic” — though all three victims were from South Asia.
Rais Bhuiyan, a man from Bangladesh who survived despite being blinded in the left eye, tried to stop Stroman’s death. He said his Muslim beliefs told him to forgive Stroman.
“Killing him is not the solution,” Bhuiyan said. “He’s learning from his mistake. If he’s given a chance, he’s able to reach out to others and spread that message to others.”
From inside the death chamber, Stroman looked at five friends watching him through a window.
“Even though I lay on this gurney, seconds away from my death, I am at total peace,” he said. He later called himself “still a proud American, Texas loud, Texas proud.”
He continued, “God bless America. God bless everyone,” he added, then turned to the warden and said: “Let’s do this damn thing.”
Stroman was free on bond for a gun possession arrest when he went on the deadly shooting spree. He had previous convictions for burglary, robbery and theft and served at least two prison terms.
He blamed the shootings on the loss of a sister in the collapse of one of the World Trade Center towers, although there is no evidence she ever existed, prosecutors argued.
“I wanted those Arabs to feel the same sense of vulnerability and uncertainty on American soil much like the mindset of chaos and bedlam that they were already accustomed to in their home country,” he said on a website devoted to his case.
But he said he had made a “terrible mistake” out of “pure anger and stupidity.”
