From Salon.com
There’s a crime wave targeting houses of worship, most of them Muslim. Is something sinister at work?
BY UZMA KOLSY
The remains of the Islamic Society of Joplin mosque (Credit: Islamic Society of Joplin/Facebook)
David Conrad, a resident of Morton Grove, Illinois, was likely peeved by the noise from the Muslim Education Center. Conrad’s home is adjacent to the center’s parking lot, and during the holy month of Ramadan, men, women and children pack the mosque on a nightly basis. On Friday, August 10, Conrad allegedly shot a pellet rifle at the mosque wall, while some 500 people were praying inside. The building structure sustained minor damage, but no one was hurt. Was this just the rumbling of a disgruntled neighbor? Maybe.
But given a chain of incidents at mosques across the country over the past two weeks, the Morton Grove shooting doesn’t appear to be an isolated event. In the past ten days, there have been eight cases of vandalism and attacks on houses of worship across the nation, including the deadly shooting spree in a Sikh gurdwara in Wisconsin on August 5. The other seven incidents were mosque defacements, which have sent a tremor of fear through America’s Muslim community.
While Morton Grove Police have not charged Conrad with a hate crime, the FBI is currently investigating the attack as a hate crime and CAIR has also called on the FBI to investigate the Lombard incident as such. Just 25 miles from Morton Grove, an Islamic school in Lombard was targeted with an even more chilling assault on Sunday night. An assailant flung a home made “MacGyver bomb” at the building, while worshippers prayed inside. The soda bottle — filled with household chemicals, including acid — did not break the window, and again, the worshippers were rattled but unharmed. According to local reports, no one has yet been charged, and the FBI is investigating the matter.
The Illinois attacks comes on the heels of an incident in Joplin, Missouri, where a mosque was reduced to ashes by a powerful firelast Monday. Although authorities are investigating whether it was an act of arson, a previous fire at the mosque over the July 4 weekend was determined to be arson. Elsewhere, a mosque in North Smithfield, Rhode Island was vandalized by a man who “head-butted” and pulled down signage. Teens were arrested on hate crime charges for taunting worshippers by throwing eggs, oranges and shooting bb pellets at a mosque in Hayward, California. Vandals defaced the Grand Mosque of Oklahoma City with paintballs, and, in an especially malicious incident, women hurled pig legs at a mosque site in Ontario, California, while people were leaving the temporary prayer space.
