Man brandishes gun at Muslim couple in US, says 'all of you should die'

Couple was looking for a new home in St Louis, Missouri when the incident occurred

A Muslim couple was threatened by a man wielding a gun while house hunting in St Louis, Missouri.

The couple, Rabie and Marwah Ayoub says they were looking for a new home when a man Leonard Debello asked them if they were Muslim. He then shouted, "All of you should die," before going inside his house to bring a weapon and brandishing it at the couple.

"This state allows you to carry a gun and shoot you," he allegedly said. "You, your wife and your kids have to die."

Couple allegedly threatened because they are Muslim demand charges be filed https://t.co/AWes1hYHcp pic.twitter.com/qCu1pkKGVr

— KMOV (@KMOV) February 24, 2016

An image acquired by CBS affiliate News 4 appears to show Debello holding a gun while standing outside his home.

The case is still under investigation according to an officer with the St. Louis County Police Department.

The officer told the The Huffington Post the case would be presented to the prosecuting attorney's office, but no action had been taken yet aside from a short-term arrest on Sunday.



Debello later told News 4 he regretted the incident and had forgotten to take medication for PTSD on the day.

However,  St Louis chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has called for Debello’s actions to be prosecuted as a hate crime.

The event stoked fear in the city's Muslim community and prompted the local religious council to hold an emergency meeting says Faizan Syed, executive director of the chapter.

He said the incident was directed at the entire Muslim faith, and not just the Ayoubs.

"That's the nature of hate crimes, they don't just target one specific individual or family," Syed said. "The crime itself has implications for a group and the effects happen to everybody within our community."

Syed said the rhetoric originating from the Republican Party during the presidential primaries, particularly from presidential candidate Donald Trump, has "definitely mainstreamed Islamophobia," and that acts of hate have spiked in the city.



"We now feel and we now see that it's almost an OK reality to target Muslims, to bully Muslim kids."

During a press conference on Tuesday, Rabie Ayoub said he now feared for his children's safety, as the family presently lived in the same locality as Debello.

“He wasn’t sorry when he pulled the gun, he wasn’t thinking about it. He was ready to shoot. If he shot me, my wife or kids, what’s his apology going to do,” he said.

This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post