Family and community members gathered for a memorial service Wednesday to honor 7-year-old Harbe Nagi, who went missing and drowned in a pool in Menands on Sunday.
The memorial service lasted through the afternoon. Attendees went up to the family one by one to offer their condolences.
Adam Alharbi, Nagi’s uncle and the spokesperson for the family, spoke on behalf of the family and thanked all the community members and first responders who helped in the two-day search for his nephew.
“It’s an unfortunate situation that we just have to live with, and it's, I think, it's very hard for the parents and for the entire family, but we believe that all the volunteers, the family, the law enforcement did everything they can, did their best.”
Volunteers — ranging from families to motorcycle groups — volunteered to look for Nagi, Alharbi said. Some tried to draw the boy out with some of his favorite things: ice cream trucks and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Law enforcement used helicopters, divers and search dogs.
“The community here have done more than enough,” Alharbi said when asked what else the community could do for his family. “They’ve helped us at searching, they helped us in every way they can. There isn’t anything else that we would ask for. And we just want to say thank you to them.”
Investigators ruled Nagi’s death an accidental drowning and determined that he had been in the pool for several days before he was found.
A Columbia University study from 2017 found that children with autism were significantly more likely to die of drowning than children in general, often after wandering away from their families.
Nagi’s funeral will be held Thursday afternoon.
Islamophobic comments draw condemnation
Local, state and federal officials expressed their condolences to the family and condemned Islamophobic comments made on social media after Nagi’s death.
One of those comments — posted by an account belonging to the Latham restaurant Taste of Italy — went viral, with many condemning and pledging to boycott the restaurant. Alyssa Cappello, the wife of restaurant owner Frank Cappello and a business owner in her own right, told CBS6 she mistakenly made the post from the business’ account instead of from a personal account.
Frank Cappello apologized on Taste of Italy's Facebook page Tuesday, writing that he didn't author the post but took "full responsibility."
"The most saddest thing that happened today is not a post that was from my site it was that a poor innocent boy is dead," the post reads. "If anybody knows me the people I have several Muslim friends and they know what my beliefs are but I take full responsibility for the post and I am very sorry to the people out there."
Taste of Italy announced in a post that it would be closing “until further notice” to allow the family “to mourn the loss of their son.”
“There is no place for Islamophobia here in our Capital Region or anywhere else, and our neighbors deserve better than this unmitigated cruelty in their time of need,” U.S. Congressman Paul Tonko said in a statement Wednesday. “Let me be clear: our Muslim neighbors love this community and they belong in our Capital Region and in the United States. I extend my deepest condolences to the Nagi family and all who have been affected by this tremendous loss.”
