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Who killed Nurul Amin Shah Alam?
Heartbreaking questions like these are usually a matter of combing for witnesses, analyzing physical evidence, and finding the culprit.
In this tragic case, it’s a matter of determining who is legally responsible for his death. Because we basically know the rest.
His death has been ruled a homicide. Now, someone needs to be held accountable for it.
Nurul Amin Shah Alam should be alive today
On February 15, 2025, Buffalo police arrested Mr. Alam after what appeared to be a misunderstanding.
Alam was a Rohingya refugee with legal status in the US. He used a cane to walk, and spoke very little English.
Following an incident where he walked while carrying a pair of poles, police tasered him and tackled him to the ground when he did not understand or respond to their commands. They charged him with assault.
He spent the next year in the Eerie County Holding Center. Reports say that he agreed to a plea deal that would make him ineligible for removal and deportation.
On February 19, 2026, Buffalo Police handed him over to Customs and Border Patrol.
CBP claims that Mr. Alam voluntarily accepted a “courtesy ride” to a closed Tim Hortons (a coffee shop chain). This seems like an odd story, on multiple levels.
CBP claims that they dropped Mr. Alam off at a “safe, warm location.” He was, however, unable to enter the locked building, and seemingly had no means of contacting his family.
Meanwhile, his family had no idea where to find him. CBP was, of course, no help.
His family and their attorney began the search, and filed a missing persons report.
On February 24, a woman’s 911 call indicated an unmoving man on her street — a man who had been alive and moving earlier that afternoon.
Mr. Alam’s body was positively identified on February 25. The outcry spanned the nation, spilling into Senate hearings and beyond.
‘Homicide’
On Tuesday, March 31, the Erie County Medical Examiner reached a determination on Mr. Alam’s cause of death.
The cause of death was “complications of a perforated duodenal ulcer precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration.”
Ulcer can be confusing, and public health officials clarified what this meant during the April 1 announcement of the findings.
In more simple terms, days of exposure to the extreme colds of Buffalo, NY in February, coupled with no access to food or water, caused a stress response that claimed his life.
The manner of death, the ME concluded, was homicide.
Another clarification is required, however.
The medical examiner’s evaluation shows that Mr. Alam’s death was the result of actions (or inactions) of others. That is a homicide.
However, homicide is also a legal classification — which is outside of the ME’s purview.
It is up to the office of the district attorney to determine whether criminal charges will be filed — and against whom.
There was an entire chain of custody of people who appear to have brought about Mr. Alam’s death. All because, his family says, he was lost in February 25 and using a pole to navigate.
Who was responsible for this senseless homicide?
Some point the finger at the police who approached, tasered, tackled, and arrested Mr. Alam while he was minding his business and trying to find his way home.
Others suggest that whoever contacted Customs & Border Patrol had to have known that they were endangering his life at the very least, even if they did not know his exact fate.
Many — perhaps most — blame CBP and the leadership, all of the way up to the top. Certainly, it was one of many issues that Congress brought up with disgraced former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
Realistically, it’s unlikely that law enforcement in New York can go after Donald Trump and Stephen Miller for orchestrating this cruel ethnic cleansing campaign. That and similar “Nuremberg 2” tasks will fall to federal authorities.
But, one hopes, authorities will at least bring some of the monsters behind Mr. Alam’s homicide to justice. Good things are possible, even in the face of the horrors.
