Ex-Farrakhan Aide Shot At UC Riverside

Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a controversial former aide to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, was wounded in a parking lot shooting Sunday evening at UC Riverside, where Muhammad had just given a speech, officials said.

A Riverside police sergeant said two or three other people were also wounded, none of them seriously. An Associated Press photographer said Muhammad was hit in the foot.

A crowd surrounded the gunman in the parking lot outside a university auditorium where Muhammad had spoken, and beat him before authorities could break up the fight. He is in police custody, officials said.

Two people were injured in the parking lot shoving after the shooting, said university spokesman Jack Chappell.

Muhammad, 43, had been suspended from his duties as senior aide to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan after a speech in November in which he called Jews “the bloodsuckers of the black nation and the black community.”

That speech was denounced by President Clinton and other black and Jewish leaders, as well as by Farrakhan himself.

On Sunday night, Muhammad had spoken to a crowd of about 1,000 at the Vision Complex theater in Los Angeles.

He offered no apology for his past remarks, warning the few whites in the audience that his speech would be “a rough ride.”

Muhammad accused Jews of becoming involved in the civil rights movement in an attempt to advance their own interests and said their involvement had actually hindered black progress.