Officials at a Minneapolis mosque fear it will be targeted again, two days after one of its members was injured in an alleged hit-and-run attack in the parking lot.
The attack was the latest in a string of incidents — from mosque burnings to Muslims being attacked at their mosques with pepper spray or, in one instance, a hammer — that have made Minnesota the leading state nationwide for mosque attacks, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“We are on edge,” Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-MN said Friday at a news conference. “This was an attempted murder. ... We need for our leaders to take this seriously.”
In Wednesday’s assault, a van slammed into Osman Ahmed, a member of the Alhikma mosque at 116 E. 32nd St., in the mosque parking lot just after he stepped out of his vehicle. Security video shows a van steering into Ahmed as he runs, knocking him to the pavement.
Ahmed, who spent a night at HCMC recovering, said he could see two hands holding the steering wheel as the van raced toward him but couldn’t see the driver. Witnesses and others led police to James E. Suttles, 37, of Minneapolis, who was arrested Wednesday evening and charged Friday with second-degree assault.
The criminal complaint against Suttles, who was being held at Hennepin County jail in lieu of $150,000 bail, does not include a count classifying what happened as a bias-motivated crime.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty acknowledged in a statement that Suttles has committed “prior violent incidents at this mosque. ... If through further investigation we determine that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this incident was motivated by bias, we will prosecute accordingly.”
Mosque officials say Suttles has terrorized their community for four years, allegedly pepper-spraying one mosque member in 2021 and attacking another with a hammer in 2022.