This article was brought to my attention today, and it broke my heart…..
EAST ORANGE — He was an aspiring lawyer, a college senior who won a prestigious internship last year with the Attorney General’s Office in Washington, D.C. His father called him studious and devout.
But 21-year-old Shamsid-Din Abdur-Raheem, authorities say, also harbored a temper, one that led his estranged girlfriend to seek a restraining order against him Tuesday morning.
Less than eight hours after that order was granted, the Atlantic County man kidnapped the couple’s 3-month-old daughter from an East Orange apartment and headed south on the Garden State Parkway. Abdur-Raheem would later tell police he pulled over on the Driscoll Bridge, high above the icy Raritan River, and held the baby over the railing.
Then he let go.
Today, as divers searched the water and as the girl’s mother prayed for her safe return, acting Attorney General Paula Dow called the incident a “horrific act of domestic violence” apparently sparked by “bad blood” between Abdur-Raheem and the ex-girlfriend, Venetta Benjamin, 29, a fellow student at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Abdur-Raheem, who was arrested shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday at his father’s home in the Sicklerville section of Winslow Township, Camden County, was ordered held on $700,000 bail today in the Essex County Jail.
Authorities said Abdur-Raheem battered the baby’s grandmother, punching her in the face and putting her in a chokehold. In a desperate attempt to stop Abdur-Raheem, police said,he chased him as he fled the apartment with Zara and blocked his car, described as a dark-colored minivan, with her body. She was then struck and knocked to the ground, suffering minor injuries.
Witnesses said it appeared a second man was driving the car, but Dow said that was unclear today, citing “conflicting information.”
After allegedly dropping his daughter in the river, Abdur-Raheem drove to an Atlantic City mosque, Masjid Muhammad, and confessed to an imam, according to authorities and the suspect’s father, Muhsin Abdur-Raheem. Abdur-Raheem then traveled to another mosque in Camden County and, ultimately, to his father’s home in Winslow. It was Muhsin Abdur-Raheem who notified police his son was there.
