An Interactive Project Explores What Happened After the Chapel Hill Shooting

Earlier this week, a judge ruled that prosecutors will be allowed to pursue the death penalty for Craig Stephen Hicks, the man who killed three Muslim students—Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha—in Chapel Hill in February. The shootings ignited nationwide debates about Islamophobia and gun control. Some insisted the incident was a consequence of the rising pitch of anti-Muslim hate. Others argued it was simply a parking dispute gone wrong. On television, in newspapers, and on the radio, experts, journalists, and pundits alike scrutinized Hicks’ mental health history and argued the implications of gun safety in this case.

A new interactive project called After the Shooting examines, in detail, the conversations spurred on by the tragedy. After the Shooting categorizes four topics related to the Chapel Hill tragedy—mental health, guns, media, and religion—and allows users to navigate two of these topics at a time. Each pair of topics is linked to a taped conversation between two people from their roster of selected “voices.” Among these include Christopher Bail, the author of Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream, and Reema Khrais, a reporter with WUNC. Experts in gun control, mental health policy, and individuals from the Muslim community are also represented. The project features frank conversations from varied viewpoints about the ways in which these issues intersect and become entangled with each other.

You can explore the project here.