Carlton, NY – A group of teenagers in western New York has been accused of harassing members of a mosque by yelling obscenities and insults during evening prayers for Ramadan, sideswiping a worshiper with a vehicle and firing a shotgun outside, the authorities said Tuesday.
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The teenagers were cornered by members of the mosque, who held them for the police. They were charged with disrupting a religious service, a misdemeanor.
The obscenities episode occurred Monday and the shooting last Friday, both outside the World Sufi Foundation mosque in Carlton, N.Y., the authorities said. They said a 17-year-old fired the shotgun; no one was hit.
“We have had occasions in the past,” said Joseph V. Cardone, the district attorney in Orleans County, “and it seems every three or four years we have some kids drive by the mosque and make comments and that sort of thing. We’ve had minor incidents, but nothing of this magnitude in the past.”
The episodes occurred amid rancor over plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from ground zero in Manhattan. The plans have prompted protests and a heated debate among politicians and commentators. It was unclear whether the episodes in Carlton, which is about 40 miles northeast of Buffalo, were related to that controversy.
At about 11 p.m. on Monday, the teenagers in Carlton were at “some type of gathering,” Mr. Cardone said, when one of them suggesting going to harass people at the “cult house” — what they called the mosque.
The teenagers got in a Chevrolet Blazer and drove in front of the mosque, beeping the horn and yelling, said Scott D. Hess, the county sheriff. Mr. Cardone could not immediately say if the teenagers yelled anti-Muslim statements, and he said it had not yet been determined whether their actions would be classified as a hate crime.
At one point, a worshiper, David Bell, went outside the mosque to see if he could spot the vehicle. “It came at him and brushed up against him,” said Mr. Cardone, who added that Mr. Bell had been treated for cuts and contusions at a hospital and released.
Bilal Huzair, an imam at the mosque, said that the teenagers had yelled anti-Muslim statements and that congregants had become concerned about the possibility of violence after hearing the shotgun discharge.
When a worshiper drove past a nearby boat launch on Lake Ontario after the episode Monday night and spotted the teenagers, congregants headed over in three cars, dialing 911 as they drove, Mr. Huzair said.
They cornered the teenagers, who Mr. Huzair said were in two trucks, at the boat launch, holding them for 40 minutes until the police arrived. “For us it was extremely frightening,” Mr. Huzair said. “We had cornered people who had just fired at us and run us over.”
The teenagers were taken into custody and also “acknowledged their involvement” in the Friday night episode, Mr. Cardone said.
The five teenagers, Mark Vendetti and Tim Weader, both 17, and Dylan Phillips, Jeff Donahue and Anthony Ogden, all 18, who are all from Holley, N.Y., are scheduled to appear in court in Carlton on Friday, the police said.
Mr. Vendetti, who is accused of firing the shotgun, was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon and faces up to four years in prison if convicted, Mr. Cardone said.
Asked about the motive, Mr. Cardone said the teenagers used “very poor judgment.”
“It’s just kids doing stupid things,” he said, “but it got more serious when they ran into a member of the mosque and they discharged a weapon. And we are taking it seriously.”
Mr. Huzair said that the mosque, which opened in 1974, had a generally good relationship with the community, but that harassment episodes had happened on several nights this Ramadan.
“The difficulty that we have is that we have difficulty in getting police officers to act more hastily in apprehending suspects,” he said.
The anti-muslim hysteria fanned by the opponents of the 9/11 mosque is unfortunately getting worse and will lead to more incidents like this. They should make an example out of these hooligans to show that such hate-crimes will not be tolerated.
We’ll be seeing more of this. The Republicans have been pushing violent hatred of Muslims for eight years now. There have been arsons, bombings, assaults and shootings already. A coworker of mine was attacked by a knife-wielding thug in the streets in the middle of the afternoon because she wears a head scarf.
What do you expect when we have the pastor of a church in Florida publicizing a “burn a koran” fesitval on 9/11 and some geriatric sephardic rabbi in israel seeking divine intervention to kill all Palestinians. There are over a billion muslims in the world and we cannot engage in this kind of hateful action without consequences.
#1 , 2, 3 what twisted leftists minds, blame the victim…as if out of the blue people start harrassing muslims…9/11, madrid, underground train bombs, islamists slaughtering and threatening the west all over the globe etc is just a figment of our imagination. zre you guys are paid posters by CAIR , MB etc who white wash all these deeds?
To all american keep your hands off all mosque. But the facts are that much more hate crimes are done against jews then muslims.
There is no such thing as a hate crime. That is a mere attempt at government thought control. How dare anyone call the Gadol HaRav Yosef, shlita, “geriatric” pejoratively. He knows more shas and poskim in his pinky finger than you’ll ever know and is smart enough to know that we are dealing with an enemy. The TORAH way of dealing with an enemy is to exterminate them. Even Sefer Koheles calls for a time to hate. We need rabbonim who have the koach to stand up to our enemies, such as HaRav Kahane, hy’d ztl, and mori ve rabbi HaRav Mordechai Yitzchok Friedman, the Tyrnava Rav.
How big is Carlton, NY if it took the police 40 minutes to get there?
Anti religious assault (verbal or physical) should be prosecuted by all means. Being Jewish and reading VIN does not give anyone the right to exonerate racist and xenophobes. When these guys meet a Jew they hate him as much!!!
This is not a right or left issue, it’s a human issue!
#2 ,
The disgusting Republican hatemongering towards Muslims is recent. President Bush never countenanced it. I wish he would speak up today.
#4,
You are the one blaming the victim. Take your hatred to Stormfront.
Poster # 4 (favish); All those despicable acts of terror and mayhem that you enumerate, which were committed by muslims are true. But that doesn’t justify unprovoked acts of harassment and disruption of religious service against anyone.