PORTLAND, Maine (AP) _ City officials sought Tuesday to reassure members of the Sudanese community who said they no longer feel safe following the fatal shooting of a hospital security officer whose family came from Sudan to Portland in 1995.
Representatives of the Sudanese Community Association of Maine met with the mayor, city manager and police chief after delivering a letter that stated its members are living in fear following a number of violent acts targeting Sudanese people.
Sudanese residents feel let down by the lack of communication that has "created fear in supposedly our new home of hope," the letter said.
James Angelo Okot, 27, was gunned down early Sunday in the parking lot of Mercy Hospital. Police were searching for two assailants.
His death was the latest act of violence to touch one of Portland's Sudanese residents. In July, a Sudanese man was severely beaten on a city street, and a Sudanese man moved out of his home after shots were fired in March, the community association said.
In November, 26-year-old Edward Okeny died from a head injury after being found unconscious on a city street. The death was deemed suspicious.
Edward Laboke of the Sudanese Community Association said he felt better after talking to interim Police Chief Joe Loughlin, who knew Okot because Loughlin helped the family moved into the Parkside neighborhood in 1995 when he patrolled there.
"The chief said he is taking this personal and we feel that the case is going to be solved and that is the message we are going to take to our community," Laboke told WCSH-TV.
Okot came to Portland along with scores of Sudanese families through a refugee resettlement program to escape violence in their homeland.
Police investigators were questioning friends, colleagues at Mercy Hospital and neighbors where the shooting took place, said Capt. Vern Malloch.
Loughlin vowed to find the assailants. "I'm angry about this and I know the detectives working this case are upset and angry about this, and we want to find the individuals responsible and bring them in and hold them accountable," he said.