Assaults Against Muslims, Arabs Escalating

Despite repeated requests for calm from President Bush and top law enforcement officials, the number of hate crimes directed at Arab Americans has almost doubled from a week ago, and the FBI has formally opened about 90 civil rights investigations since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday that 30 FBI field offices are investigating attacks against members of Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities around the nation.

In addition, local police and state agencies are handling hundreds of other hate-related cases, including slayings in San Gabriel, Dallas and Mesa, Ariz., as well as numerous shootings, beatings and incidents in which individuals have been dragged from their cars.

Citing criminal charges filed Wednesday against two white men in Seattle and Salt Lake City, Mueller warned, “These indictments are proof that those who attempt to take out their anger and frustration on innocent Americans will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

In Seattle, Patrick Cunningham, 53, was charged with shooting at worshipers and attempting to torch a mosque. In Salt Lake City, James Herrick, 31, was jailed for allegedly setting fire to a Pakistani restaurant. Both crimes occurred two days after the airplane hijacking attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Surge in Attacks Aimed at New Targets

The large number of assaults against Arabs, Muslims and Sikhs appears to be directly related to the Sept. 11 attacks, which federal authorities say were carried out by 19 men from the Middle East. Traditionally, hate crimes in the United States have been targeted against blacks, Latinos, Jews, Asian Americans and American Indians, while people of Arab descent have been subjected to relatively few such attacks, according to federal crime statistics.

Under U.S. statutes, authorities can file federal hate crime charges against individuals who attack others based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity or national origin.

In many of the investigations being conducted by the FBI, authorities are weighing a wide range of possible charges. Mueller said that the federal grand juries in Seattle and Salt Lake City indicted the suspects because they believed that they were trying to take violent revenge on Muslim communities.

In Seattle, Cunningham was charged with four offenses: obstructing free exercise of religion, attempting to deface religious property, attempting to damage a building and using a gun in a violent crime. He pleaded not guilty.

The religion-related charges each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; a conviction on the other charges could add 15 years or more.

Police said Cunningham pointed a gun at two worshipers outside the north Seattle Idriss Mosque, and also doused cars with gasoline. They said he tried to set the cars on fire and hoped to burn the mosque as well, but then fled the scene with a gas can--all the while firing a .22-caliber revolver at the worshipers.

No one was injured, but Assistant U.S. Atty. Steve C. Gonzalez said that was only because “the gun misfired.”

“The evidence is more than circumstantial,” Gonzalez said Thursday. “This was two days after Sept. 11. He was targeting worshipers because of their religious background.”

Cunningham was arrested after his car crashed into a pole, injuring him.

According to court papers, he was questioned at a local hospital and, while denying he was at the mosque, said he was angry about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He also said that he had fired a gun at coyotes earlier in the evening.

Arrestees Cite Sept. 11 Mass Killings as Motive

The Salt Lake City case has similar overtones.

There, Herrick was indicted for allegedly setting ablaze the Curry in a Hurry restaurant, owned by a family who moved from Pakistan 15 years ago. Police said he ignited two jars of gasoline at the back of the restaurant and drove away.

According to court papers, Herrick said “he did this because of what happened” on Sept. 11. The papers added that Herrick “knew that the owners were from the area of the world the suspects of the bombings came from.”

He was indicted for attempting to use fire and explosive materials to damage the building, a charge that carries up to 10 years in prison. He pleaded not guilty.

The fire caused little damage.

Both Cunningham and Herrick were first charged with local offenses in the mosque and restaurant attacks, a common occurrence in possible hate crime cases. After local officials arrest a suspect, the federal government weighs whether it too will prosecute.

Sometimes the local jurisdictions will bow out because the federal charges carry a stiffer punishment. In other cases, the federal government will wait to see how the state charges turn out before deciding whether it still wants to bring the accused to trial.

Some of the other cases that have caught the FBI’s attention, but have not yet resulted in federal charges, include the three homicides, all of which occurred on Sept. 15.

An Egyptian man, Adel Karas, was shot dead at the grocery he owned in San Gabriel. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has been investigating the shooting as part of a robbery, while the FBI is seeking to determine whether there might have been a racial motive behind the attack by three assailants.

Karas, a 48-year-old Coptic Christian and father of three, had lived in Arcadia.

In Mesa, Ariz., Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year-old Sikh, was shot to death outside his gas station from a passing pickup truck.

Frank Roque, a 42-year-old machinist, was arrested and, as he was being led away, reportedly shouted: “I stand for America all the way!” Police said Roque also later told them, mockingly: “I’m an American. Arrest me. Let those terrorists run wild.”

Police suspect that Roque earlier fired shots at a store clerk of Lebanese descent and at an Afghan man coming out of his home.

In Dallas, police and the FBI are probing the death of Waqar Hasan, a 46-year-old Pakistani grocer. He was found shot to death on the floor of his store.

Other cases involved a firebomb lobbed onto the roof of a Massachusetts convenience store owned by a U.S. citizen from India, a Muslim student beaten and pelted with eggs in a parking lot at Arizona State University, and the beating of a Chicago taxi driver named Mustapha Zemkour.

His two assailants yelled, “This is what you get, you mass murderer!”