Robbery,slaying a familiar tragedy

They drive taxis, deliver takeout, or work dangerous shifts at convenience stores, often in the roughest of neighborhoods.

As immigrants striving to better themselves, they shoulder risks that native-born Americans shun.

And as Wednesday's slaying of a Bangladeshi man inside his family's East Germantown variety store demonstrated, the aspirations of these newcomers can quickly turn tragic.

The execution-style killing of 20-year-old Fakhur Uddin at Rahman Body Oils Beads & Variety Store on Germantown Avenue, near Chelten, was the fifth robbery-slaying of a Philadelphia immigrant this summer.

It follows the July shooting of a Malian couple inside their Feltonville store, the June slaying of a Malian man at a North Broad Street car wash, and the robbery of an Egyptian pizza shop owner in North Philadelphia, also in June.

Philadelphia Police Homicide Capt. James Clark said investigators were trying to enhance video surveillance tapes from two businesses on the block where Uddin was killed but so far had no concrete leads.

Police say it appeared that Uddin was forced into the back room of the shop, bound, gagged, and executed, but they don't know why. They said less than $25 was taken from a box near the cash register, and the register itself was not opened.

Speaking from her shop around the corner from where Uddin was killed, his aunt, Fatimah Khatun, said arrangements were under way to return his body to Bangladesh for burial, probably this weekend.

She said the Philadelphia detectives and FBI agents who came Wednesday after her nephew was killed were helpful.

"They helped," she said. "But this is a bad area. We need . . . more police. . . . I pray for them to catch the one who killed my nephew."

Others interviewed near the shuttered crime scene yesterday said the area, a heavily trafficked commercial corridor, needed more protection.

"They [immigrants] come over here trying to make a better living, and they end up going through the same thing we go through," said Louis Peden, 52, an African American man who wore an orange beret and sat on a lounge chair at the intersection of Germantown and Chelten Avenues. "We need cops. Not 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., like now. We need them all day long, like it used to be."

Even as police sought the public's help to find Uddin's killer, asking anyone with information to call homicide detectives at 215-686-3334, advocates for the city's immigrants said the details were unique, but the story line was sadly familiar.

"People who come here with entrepreneurial goals are very often doing so in neighborhoods that are really living with a challenging level of crime, and sometimes they are specifically targeted because people think they don't speak sufficient English, or people think they will be easy targets," said Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, director of intake and operations at the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, a nonprofit immigrant-resettlement agency.

Immigrants often work in the wee hours, said Bergson-Shilcock, and often use public transportation during off hours. Add to those vulnerabilities "the rumor, and in some cases the reality, that immigrants don't trust banks," she said, "so there is the perception that they will have more cash on hand."

The Rev. Tom Betz, of Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church, near Chinatown in Center City, has worked frequently with immigrants and formerly headed the Archdiocesan Office for Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees.

Casting his memory back a decade, he recalled the story of a Chinese woman killed at a North Philadelphia take-out restaurant - and her son who was killed at that same restaurant 20 years later.

"I remember a 17-year-old who was the only support for his family being held up several times," he said, recalling another incident that didn't end fatally.

Of this latest immigrant killing, he said: "It's not a new story, but it is a sad story."