School: American killed in Yemen no proselytizer

Joel Shrum / The Shrum family

(AP) SANAA, Yemen - The school employing an American teacher gunned down in Yemen has denied accusations that he was proselytizing Christianity.

A text message that circulated by mobile phone in Yemen said that "holy warriors" had killed "a senior missionary" in the central city of Taiz, shortly after the teacher was shot dead Sunday by two gunmen on a motorcycle.

Gunmen kill U.S. teacher in Yemen

It was impossible to confirm the claim of responsibility. Al Qaeda and other militant groups are active in Yemen, which has suffered a breakdown of central state authority during the country's yearlong uprising.

Taiz security director Ali al-Saidi said Monday that the investigation is still ongoing.

A statement from the International Training Development Centre in Taiz identified the victim as Joel Shrum, an American development worker living in Yemen with his wife and two children since 2010.

The school denied that Shrum was proselytizing, saying that he "highly respected" Islam. It said Muslims and Christians work together on "human development, skill transfer and community development" projects there and that religious and political debates are not permitted.

The release said the school "is calling on the Yemeni people to rise up and rejects the hatred and violence in their country."

The (Lancaster) Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era identified Shrum, 30, as a former resident of the central Pennsylvania town of Mount Joy.

Shrum's father told the newspaper his son loved his job. "He was just motivated by especially seeing people coming out of poverty," James Shrum said.

Joel Shrum had last talked to his family on Friday, discussing a planned vacation together this summer, the newspaper reported.

Shrum was a standout football player at Donegal High School, where former coach Gayne Deshler remembered him as a team-first player. Deshler told the newspaper he worried about Shrum and other family members who did church worker abroad, fearing the kind of violence that took Shrum's life.

"They were the kind of family you could see doing that because they were always more interested in other people than themselves," he said.

[SevenThunders]

I think we should go on a mass, violent retaliation rage against Muslim icons in our home country.....

Oh wait, I'm not a Muslim and my religion expressly forbids repaying hate with hate. Revenge will have to wait until the Lords return.

[credibility2]

He was murdered by radical Muslims because he was a Christian and an American. So, why isn't our president denouncing this murder? It's troubling that all this president is only concerned about religious intolerance when it involves Muslims who aren't Americans.

[rightontarget]

I feel sorry for his family. He was an American living in a foreign country. That's enough to get you a "bullseye" on your back. Why the heck anyone would want to live outside of the United States or even visit some of those places is a mystery to me.

[julianpenrod]

It is apparently a most unwise move to trust any "innocuous" institution, like "humanitarian aid", "news services", even "schools" to necessarily not be fronts for Mossad/MI-5/CIA subversive activities. It is widely declared at best an imprecise technique, judging someone by their looks, but ask yourself, how many teachers favor a bull neck, skin head, perpetual three day stubble and superior smirk, and how many Blackwater mercenaries do?

[Obamaisagenocidalmaniac]

why is it you leftist talk about not judging people by the outward appearance. What if a white American started singling out Muslims in their traditional garb because all those terrorist wear the same garb. But Naplitano, Obullcrap, and Stepandfetchit Holder would call that racism

[giver3]

Who cares if he was "proselytizing". That is only telling someone what you believe.

[rightontarget]

"Proselytizing" is not just stating what you believe. It is trying to CONVERT someone over to your own belief. There is a difference.

[giver3]

Who cares if he was "proselytizing". That is only telling someone what you believe.

[gringotom]

So it would have been OK to murder him IF he WAS proselytizing Christianity ? Ummm....Nazi Germany anyone ?