After an escalation of targeted anti-Muslim incidents at the Islamic Center of Bothell (ICOB), located on the second floor of a building on East Riverside Drive, the Bothell Police Department and the FBI have begun an investigation to determine if the events were bias-motivated.
“The reason why we thought this rose to such a level is because there has not been just one or two or three but a series of events that have targeted this community. We took the last one very seriously and called for a federal investigation into the series of events that have taken place,” said Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of the Washington State chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), at a press conference held on February 24.
In November 2012 some books related to Islam had some hate messages written on them and were left in a bag near the women’s entrance to the center. “That incident was not reported to police,” Bukhari said. On September 28, 2013, the A-frame sign along the street was spray painted on both sides with black spray paint smeared all over the signage. A police report was filed in response to this incident. In October 2013, graffiti was found outside of the building’s entrance on the wall. “The vandalism was about three feet tall by two feet wide, and it was male genitalia that was spray painted in black paint,” Bukhari said.
Then, just a couple of weeks ago, on Thursday, February 6, the imam found as he arrived for morning prayers the flag that was posted outside was pulled up and burned. “It seemed to have been done sometime between Wednesday and Thursday, and that was reported to Bothell Police Department,” Bukhari noted.
The latest incident was discovered on Saturday morning, February 22, when 10 booklets related to Islam, each with handwritten hateful messages written inside the front cover, were found strategically placed in a different parking spot in the parking lot.
“That act showed an increased amount of brazenness,” Bukhari said, adding, “Despite signage on the outside of the building saying the property is under camera surveillance, the person took great care to not just throw the booklets out, but to place them carefully in different spots. That caused some extra concern that someone that bold would come to this property and do that in this area.”
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