A teenage girl was brutally murdered early Sunday in Herndon, Va., as she walked from a McDonalds to a mosque, and police quickly arrested a suspect named Darwin Martinez Torres.
The incident may not be political, but the result of a dispute between people in a car and a group of teenagers walking from a McDonalds to a nearby mosque very early on Sunday morning, said police. “At this point, there doesn’t seem to be an indication this was a bias incident,” said Fairfax County Officer Tawny Wright. “It looks like they got into a dispute over something.”
According to the county police:
A man has been charged with murdering a 17-year-old Reston girl who was reported missing today, Sunday, June 18, around 4 a.m. near Dranesville Road and Woodson Road, in the Herndon area. An investigation determined she was walking outside with a group of friends when they got into a dispute with a man in a car. It appears the suspect, Darwin A. Martinez Torres, 22, of Sterling, got out of his car and assaulted the victim. Her friends could not find her and police were called to help.
The victim is 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen of Reston, Va. Torres lived in Sterling, Va., close to where the girl’s body was found in a lake, and a few miles from the initial incident.
According to a long article in the Washington Post,
Police have not said that the slaying was a hate crime, but the issue was on the minds of many Muslims…
Sunday night, a van struck a crowd of pedestrians, including worshipers leaving a pair of mosques in London. Witnesses said the pedestrians were struck as they departed late-night prayers.
The ADAMS Center has a paid armed security guard at the Sterling site, according to [Arsalan] Iftikhar. He said many mosques have increased security since six Muslim worshipers were killed at a mosque in Quebec earlier this year.
The article was headlined “Officials: 17-year-old Muslim girl assaulted and killed after leaving Virginia mosque.”