569 Islamophobic Attacks in 512 Days

[UPDATED] Hate Crime Watch: 569 Islamophobic Attacks in 512 Days

December, 2016

  1. December 1, 2016 – Messages threatening minority employees at the GM plant in Wentzville, MO, keep appearing, with one “promising to kill minorities on or around December 1 and promis[ing] more violence against people who got in the way.”
  1. December 3, 2016 – Off-duty hijabi NYPD officer Aml Elsokary is dropping her 16-year-old son off in Brooklyn, NY, when a man shoves her son and yells at her, “ISIS (expletive), I will cut your throat, go back to your country!” Elsokary was hailed as hero in 2014 after saving a baby and the baby’s grandparents from a burning building.
  1. December 4, 2016 – The Middle Eastern Bakery and Deli in Phoenix, AZ, is damaged for the second time since the election when its windows are smashed. Community members rally to support the owners, but the vandals remain at large.
  1. December 5, 2016 – A 45-year-old hijabi Metropolitan Transportation Authority officer is attacked aboard a 7 train headed to Grand Central Terminal in Midtown New York City, NY, while in uniform, on her way to work. Her attacker tells calls her a terrorist and says “she should not be working with the city,” before following her off the train into the station and pushing her down a flight of stairs. The victim is left with an injured ankle and knee.
  1. December 5, 2016 – A Black female Muslim Newark, NJ, municipal worker is “ridiculed and assaulted” by a New Jersey state employee, who then proceeds to rip her hijab off of her head.
  1. December 7, 2016 – A pig carcass is dumped outside the Islamic Center of Lawton, OK. Though it is removed, large bloodstains remain in the parking lot.
  1. December 7, 2016 – The DarulFalah Islamic Center in Tutsin, CA, receives an anonymous bomb threat.
  1. December 7, 2016 – A Muslim family in South City, MO, is repeatedly harassed by one of their neighbors on the same street where a house was burned down soon after a Muslim family purchased it. Police refuse to do anything even after being called to the neighborhood four times this year, but advise the family to file an order of protection.
  1. December 9, 2016 – In Hicksville, NY, a 28-year-old Muslim woman comes back to her car to see “Islam” and “Trump” scratched into her car. Her windshield is also smashed in, and her taillights broken, causing $3,000 worth of damage.
  1. December 9, 2016 – A 20-year-old man is confronted in Bedford-Stuyvesant, NY, by two men. One man asks “Are you an Indian or a Muslim?” and if the victim can speak English, before punching him in the face, while the other man throws the victim to the grown and fractures his jaw on the concrete.
  1. December 10, 2016 – A man is stabbed after a verbal altercation as he leaves a parking lot adjacent to a mosque in Simi Valley, CA. Two men are arrested.
  1. December 11, 2016 – A 7-Eleven worker in the Bronx, NY, is yelled at by a man who says “Don’t look at me, I can do whatever I want. You f___ing immigrant piece of s___. You Muslim. Go back to your country…That is why Donald Trump is president.” He goes on to threaten to stab the mans son, before taking his food and leaving with a parting “All you see in your life are goats.”
  1. December 18, 2016 – A group of Muslim women are eating at a Dunkin Donuts in Midtown New York City, NY, when Mason Gray approaches them and yells, “I hate Muslims, I’m a cop, and I’m going to kill you.” He throws his coffee at one of the 21-year-old women and swings his bag at her, hitting her in the face, before chasing her out of the coffeeshop and putting her in a headlock and telling her he is going to kill her.
  1. December 20, 2016 – Michael Hoskinson, who serves on the Planning Commission of Huntington Beach, CA, finally resigns after facing criticism for Islamophobic comments he made in a YouTube video earlier this year about political correctness. “I think Islam is definitely a threat,” says Hoskinson in the video. “I don’t call it a religion at all.”
  1. December 24, 2016 – The windows of the Ahram Halal Market in Portland, ME, are smashed on Christmas Eve. Witnesses report a white male smashed the six windows with a baseball bat.