Seattle's Somali community is afraid of a backlash after the holiday bomb threat was uncovered in Portland.
Seattle residents with a Somali background told KOMO-TV they are concerned that people will think all Somali Muslims are potential terrorists.
The director of the Somali Community Center in Seattle says she fears people will retaliate against the Somali community, one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in Seattle.
"I know I'm gonna be getting a lot of phone calls again - and some people getting harassed, or getting hurt," Sahra Farah told KOMO-TV.
Farah said some Somali Muslims were harassed after 9/11 and in September of last year, when a Somali-American suicide bomber from Seattle was accused of killing 21 peacekeepers in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Last month, a woman was arrested after allegedly attacking two Muslim women from Somalia at a Tukwila gas station.
According to court documents, Jennifer Jennings called the women "terrorists" and "suicide bombers." She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Arslan Bukhari of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which works to improve relations between non-Muslim Americans and Muslims, also worries about the potential for more violence.
"We don't want a backlash by persons who are driven to believe that somehow the Somali-American community, or the Muslim-American community, had something to do with this," Bukhari said.
The incident in Portland has Purple Heart recipient Harry Pickett defending the safety of America.
Pickett served with the U.S. Marines in Iraq until an improvised explosive device destroyed his armored Humvee in 2008.
He told KING-TV he believes his home turf is safer than any area he patrolled during his deployment in Iraq. He cited the undercover sting operation that caught the teen, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, as a prime example.
"With them setting him up and everything, I mean, how many times does that go on and a lot of us don't know about it?" he asked. "Every once in a while they might get a lucky shot in, but I think for the most part we're more protected than a lot of people might think."
Source: seattlepi.com
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