Very well written story in Newsday about the funeral for the slain family of Coptic Christians in New Jersey. Writers Daryl Khan and Solana Pyne do a good job of making the readers feel the grief and the rage of the mourners. To wit:

At one point, a Muslim cleric walked in on the service, and a mourner became enraged, his voice rising out of a din of disapproval as Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healey was speaking.

"You are the killer!" the enraged man shouted at the cleric. "You are the killer!"

Eventually, police restrained the mourner and escorted him out of the church.

And then there was this scene at the funeral procession:

As pallbearers pulled each coffin out of the four hearses, Amal Garas's mother, Farial Garas, wailed.

"Monica! No! No!" she moaned, banging on the side of the 8-year-old's coffin. "Sylvia! Oh God! No! They've left me all alone!" She collapsed, surrounded by relatives who could offer little consolation.

Pretty wrenching stuff. A deacon for the St. George and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church tried to explain away the anti-Islamic currents at the funeral by saying, "They're saying it because they have so emotion inside they just want to blow up."

According to an AP report, from Egypt, Talaat Armanious asked of his brother's slaying, "Why would anyone do that to him?"

The brother demanded an "extensive investigation to find out what really happened," and let slip: "We want revenge."