Charlotte NAACP, other activists support teen accused of assaulting Muslim student
A group of Black Charlotte activists said Monday they do not believe the assault of a Muslim student at Ardrey Kell High School by a football player was a hate crime, but instead a fight between students.
“Misinformation” being spread has harmed his family and caused a racial divide, they said.
The activists, including Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP Branch, accused Jibril Hough of the Islamic Center of Charlotte — a spokesperson for the Muslim student and her family — of being the source of misinformation. Mack and the activists held a news conference inside the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center.
“Every statement that has been made, has been made intentionally,” Mack said. “And those statements are causing a racial divide between the Black and Arab community, something we do not need.”
Hough, in a phone interview with The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday after initial publication of this story, said it was Mack who was creating division.
“There is no division, except for the one that she’s trying to create and by doing so, draw sympathy for the young man and make him the victim out of this,” he said.
Hough said he has told people not to take vengeful acts, and that this is not an issue of communities being pitted against each other, but a single event that should be handled in the courts.
The 15-year-old girl’s family has held two news conferences about the March 7 attack in the school. They said the attacker, who is Black, had bullied her with anti-Muslim comments, and that the assault was so fierce it broke bones in her face. They said the girl had not been physical with him but was verbally standing up for another female classmate.
Mack said the NAACP was not choosing a side, and said the organization has supported people from all backgrounds.
She referenced the case of Emmett Till, the African American teen lynched in a hate crime in Mississippi in 1955 after some people claimed he whistled at a white woman in a grocery store.
“Because if you know the history of Black people in this country, many Black people have been lynched for less,” Mack said. “We can go back to Emmett Till ... who was killed based on one white woman telling a lie.”
She said it was important for people to support both students and their families in coming together for reconciliation. Neither student’s name has been released.
BJ Murphy, a Charlotte-based radio host and a member of the Islamic community, said Hough’s labeling of the altercation as a hate crime, and saying that the girl could have been severely injured or killed if the boy had continued to hit her, was “absolutely a false narrative.”
He said the misinformation Hough has spread has caused the teen and his family to experience harassment, threats of violence, and vandalism to their home.
Murphy said he and Mack became involved with the family after they reached out about the threats. They then reached out to Hough to tell him about those threats and ask him to stop saying the assault was a hate crime. They told him everyone should wait for the results of a law-enforcement investigation.
Police investigation
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department posted on the social media site X on March 13 that it had sent its school resource officer’s report to the FBI for investigation of the allegation of a hate crime.
Police posted again on X on April 2 to say CMPD detectives investigated whether there was evidence to support a criminal charge under North Carolina hate crime laws, and said there was not, and that the FBI was not investigating. The girl’s family questioned how CMPD could reach that finding without interviewing her beyond the school resource officer’s attempt to speak with her shortly after the assault.
The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office issued a statement late Friday afternoon saying “if new information becomes available suggesting a federal crime, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office are prepared to review it and proceed accordingly.”
Meanwhile, the North Carolina office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement Monday calling on Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather to reopen a hate crime investigation into the case. The organization also said the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district should release security footage.
“We are deeply concerned by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s claim that there was ‘no evidence’ to support a hate crime charge related to this brutal attack despite the fact that investigators never interviewed the victim, who has alleged that the football player who hospitalized her had a history of anti-Muslim bullying,” CAIR’s statement said. “Her testimony would constitute evidence, so law enforcement’s claim that there was no evidence is blatantly false. The police department’s insufficient and incompetent investigation cannot stand.”
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools denied a request from The Charlotte Observer for a copy of school surveillance video, saying video of the attack was a “student record” that is not public under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Mike Stolp, a spokesperson for Merriweather, said the district attorney did not plan to take any action.
More allegations
Kass Ottley, a community activist in Charlotte, said that the girl’s family and Hough have made inconsistent statements publicly.
“And the problem with when you tell a lie, is everything you say after that is suspect,” Ottley said.
She said the activists didn’t condone violence against anyone, but did not want the boy to be vilified for being “involved in a fight,” Ottley said.
Asked if the boy suffered any injuries, Mack said she didn’t know.
Ottley said: “At the end of the day, you have to keep your hands to yourself. ... When you hit someone, you don’t know what you’re going to get.
Hough response
Hough said Ottley’s characterization that his statements have been inconsistent was wrong. During the press conference, Ottley pointed to an interview Hough previously did in which he said he couldn’t confirm or deny if the girl had punched the boy. She said his narrative later changed.
“I’m a man of principle and and in a legal manner, I can’t confirm or deny what happened before he hit her, because I wasn’t in the room,” Hough said. “But what I can confirm is ... every time [the girl] sat down to tell this story, it’s been the same, and she’s been consistent in saying that she did not hit him.”
Hough disagreed with Murphy challenging Hough’s belief the girl could have been seriously injured or killed.
“Within approximately five punches or so ... the guy had already busted her eye, broke two or three bones in her face and broke her nose, and put her into concussion protocol,” Hough said.
This story was originally published April 8, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
