Lawsuit follows Michigan Muslim mob attack on believers
Hundreds of angry Muslims threw chunks of concrete and eggs at a team of Christians, spraying them with urine and cursing at them – all while police stood by and then threatened the victims with “disorderly conduct.”
Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Somalia?
No. Dearborn, Michigan.
So now a team of attorneys from the American Freedom Law Center is going to court on behalf of the victims of the violent Muslim mob at the Arab International Festival last June, an attack that was captured on video.
The federal civil rights complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan names as defendants officials from the Wayne County sheriff’s office who “sided with the Muslim mob intent on suppressing the Christians’ speech.”
The complaint explains that authorities failed to protect the Christians – and in fact ordered them to leave the Arab Festival under threat of arrest for “disorderly conduct.”
But not one Muslim was arrested for the attack that left several members of the Christian group bloodied, the complaint states.
Among the defendants is Deputy Chief Mike Jaafar, a Muslim who was featured in the now-canceled show, “All American Muslim,” which appeared on The Learning Channel.
WND reported when the situation developed:
The crowd was chanting “Allahu Akbar!” – Arabic for “God is the greatest!” on the video.
It shows the crowd – reminiscent of a rock-throwing “intifada” scene from the Middle East – hurling a dizzying barrage of objects at the Christians standing passively with their signs, causing some injuries.
WND later learned that the Christian crowd had been carrying a pole with a pig’s head attached to the top, further angering the Muslim crowd. At the beginning of the video, Christian street preachers shout, “God is good, and God is not Allah!”
First, police approached Ruben Israel of OfficialStreetPreachers.com, warning him, “The city of Dearborn has an ordinance, OK, that you guys can’t use the megaphone. So, if you guys continue to use that, you will get a citation.”
Israel noted that the group was allowed to use the megaphone in 2011. Then he asked the officer, “So, if we don’t use a megaphone, can we throw water bottles at the crowd?”
The officer shook his head no.
“So what are you going to do if they throw water bottles at us?” Israel asked.
“If that happens, we will take care of that and address it,” the officer promised.
When Israel said he had captured the mob’s assault on the Christians on video, the officer suggested he “take it through the proper channels, and we’ll try to find them.”
However, at the 2:17 mark of the video, the mob can be heard screaming, “You want to jump ‘em? C’mon, let’s go!”
One boy yells, “Let’s beat the sh-t out of them!”
A girl shouts, “Go home! Do you understand English?!”
The Christians are no longer using megaphones, as the mob advances on them from all angles – hurling bottles, cans, eggs, chunks of concrete and even milk crates toward their heads.
Even young children shout obscenities such as, “F—k you, b-tch!”
Meanwhile, police are nowhere to be seen in the video.
One of the Christians asks another, “Is this worse than last year?”
He replies, “Oh my goodness, yeah!! This is insanity.”
An irate 18-year-old man from Iraq gets into the Christians’ faces, screaming, “If you don’t like Dearborn, then go the f—k back home! … I am an American citizen, and I have my rights. There’s freedom of religion, isn’t there?”
He screams, “So why do you guys pray like this on the bank? Oh Lord. Why don’t you get on the ground, like the prophets, huh? You’re Christian. That’s what it says in the Bible, you stupid sh-t!”
Many minutes into the video and after much of the shouting takes place, Dearborn mounted police ride through the crowd. The video states that no arrests were made.
According to the tape, the mob began chucking more stones, bottles and debris as the Christians were injured and property damaged.
“Dearborn Police finally arrive after 30 mins of assault,” a caption states.
Despite the attacks the Christians had endured, a man identified in the video as Deputy Chief Dennis Richardson of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office tells them, “You’re a danger to the safety right now.”
Officers claim they don’t have the manpower to protect the Christians at the festival.
“Your safety is in harm’s way. You need to protect everybody,” said Deputy Chief Mike Jaafar of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office. “You do have the option to leave. I just want to make that clear.”
Israel replied, “You have the option to stand with us” as Jaafar walked away, leaving the Christians to the mob.
When police leave, the crowd continues harassing the Christians and screaming profanities.
Then police begin escorting the Christians away from the crowd.
Deputy Chief Richardson tells Israel, “We have the responsibility of policing the entire festival, and obviously your conduct is such that it’s causing a disturbance and is a direct threat to the safety of everyone here. Someone could get hurt. You already have blood on your face. One of the festival people, one of my officers, anybody can get hurt. Now we’re going to escort you out.”
Israel explains that the mob throws things and becomes more aggressive when police leave the scene.
“Part of the reason that they throw things on someone is because you tell them stuff that enrages them,” Richardson argues.
The AFLC said the Christians were wearing shirts with Scripture quotes and Christian messages.
“In our society, which is guided by Judeo-Christian principles, free speech and religious freedom are protected against censorship or punishment,” said Robert Muise, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel.
“Consequently, law enforcement officials have a constitutional duty not to effectuate a heckler’s veto, nor may they join a violent mob intent on suppressing speech. Instead, officials must take reasonable action to protect persons exercising their free speech rights. Here, we have an angry and violent mob of Muslims intent on suppressing free speech and law enforcement officials aiding and abetting the violence in violation of the Constitution.”
Daivd Yerushalmi, co-founder of the AFLC, said, “What is shocking is that this Shariah-mandated violence in response to speech contrary to Islam is not just occurring overseas in places like Egypt and Libya, it is happening right here in the United States. One thing is clear: no citizen should be stoned in a city street in America for exercising his constitutional rights. In the United States, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not Shariah.”
AFLC attorneys already successfully have litigated several challenges on behalf of Christians whose rights were violated in Dearborn – which is described as “a city with one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States.”
The team said, for example, a Christian pastor was banned from handing out Christian literature in 2009, and the resulting court decision from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was that the pastor’s First Amendment rights were trampled.
Then the next year, four Christians were handcuffed and jailed by police for preaching during the Arab Festival. They were accused of “breach of the peace.”
A jury acquitted the four, and in a subsequent civil rights complaint, a federal judge rejected city demands to dismiss it.
The current case alleges Wayne County officials violated the Christians’ rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, and that the officials deprived the Christians of the equal protection of the law guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.
(Editor’s note: The following 22-minute video contains profane statements shouted by an angry mob and may be offensive to viewers.)
