Muhammet Turkay, the Executive Director/Principal of the Memphis School of Excellence charter school informed parents that one of their students was caught on campus with a handgun. Earlier reports from WREG, the CBS affiliate in Memphis indicated the student was attempting to smuggle the gun into the school using a sock.
But WREG has updated their story and is now reporting, charter school staff members saw the 15 year old boy showing off the gun to other students in the cafeteria. Police confiscated the gun and the student left campus.
Memphis School of Excellence is a controversial charter school that opened in 2010 and was later criticized by County Commissioner Terry Roland for having ties to a U.S. Islamic network. The school brochure says, "teachers are recruited from around the world." And they have the green cards to prove it according to this 2012 Commercial Appeal article.
In 30,000 square feet in a former IRS building on Mendenhall, Ali Gumus and Muhammet Turkay run a charter school that likely has more Turkish employees than any school in the city.
Although the school denied allegations of connections to Islamic networks, it admits to paying a significant amount of tax payer funding to the Cosmos Foundation. The New York Times exposes the Cosmos Foundation as a "close-knit network of businesses and organizations run by Turkish immigrants" many of whom follow Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic Turkish preacher whose Islamic "devotees have built a worldwide religious, social and nationalistic movement in his name."
So, was this just another case of a Memphis teenager bringing a gun to school or something more sinister?
A Charter School Watchdog group found pictures online from a Gulen teacher's Facebook page. The teacher, Ali Oksuzer is posing with a gun in one picture then alongside another teacher, Alisher Matkulov, who is pointing a gun at Ali's head. There are also pictures of students brandishing guns.
So, was this just another case of a Memphis teenager bringing a gun to school or something more sinister?
A Charter School Watchdog group found pictures online from a Gulen teacher's Facebook page. The teacher, Ali Oksuzer is posing with a gun in one picture then alongside another teacher, Alisher Matkulov, who is pointing a gun at Ali's head. There are also pictures of students brandishing guns.
The Zaman School may be on the other side of the world from Memphis but since these pictures were published, the Facebook page was taken down and the teachers are rumored to now be in the U.S. According to the Watchdog group, Ali is supposedly involved with GENIUS Olympiad and the Terra Science and Education Foundation in America.
