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.
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 suggested 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.
Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.
Source: The New York Times
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