8 Months, No Justice: Who Killed Sayed Faisal?
Words by Shivani Parikh and Afiya Rahman
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8 Months, No Justice: Who Killed Sayed Faisal?
It has been eight months since the murder of Sayed Faisal by the Cambridge police. Sayed, a 20-year-old Bangladeshi and Muslim University of Massachusetts-Boston student was seen experiencing a mental health crisis moments before a five block foot chase by four armed police officers, resulting in being fatally shot. An only child of Bangladeshi immigrants, he was described by his parents as loving travel, creating art, and a deeply family-oriented person. His family immigrated to the United States roughly a decade ago. Since then, he was an active member of the community, contributing artwork to the Mystic River Mural Project (shown below), and serving as an interpreter to Somerville’s Welcome Project, which provides language and civic education to immigrants. A student at UMass Boston, he was a computer engineering student hoping to pursue a career in creating video games. Sayed was killed in Cambridgeport, a stone’s throw away from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and less than a mile from Harvard College’s campus. Indeed, the “Justice for Faisal” movement comprises of students from more than seven Boston area universities, along with many community members and organizations. Sayed’s father described his son as a “meritorious student” - one whose dreams were stolen away by the Cambridge Police Department.