By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: March 9, 2011LOS ANGELES — Sgt. Mike Abdeen, on duty in the county Sheriff’s Department, got a call last year from a Muslim father who was worried about his son. The young man had grown a full beard and was spending a lot of time alone in his room, on the computer. The father was worried that perhaps his son had fallen in with Islamic extremists, and wanted Sergeant Abdeen to look into it.
The sergeant approached the young man after Friday Prayer, talked with him over coffee and kept in touch over the next few months. It turned out that the youth was hardly a budding terrorist; he was just a spiritual searcher, a recent college graduate who had grown a beard to express his Muslim identity.
For Sergeant Abdeen, a Palestinian-American who runs a pioneering sheriff’s unit charged with forging connections between law enforcement and local Muslims, the episode was a sign of progress. Until recently, a concern like this would probably have gone unreported because of the fear some Muslims have about talking to law enforcement.
“If the father didn’t trust us to do the right thing, he wouldn’t call us,” the sergeant said.
The question of whether American Muslims do, or do not, cooperate with law enforcement agents in preventing potential terrorist attacks is at the heart of Congressional hearings that begin Thursday in Washington. The hearings have been called by Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island, N.Y., and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He says that American Muslims do not cooperate, and that he will call witnesses who will prove it.
This is all Peter King’s committee hearings are about.
The article mischaracterizes Peter King’s beliefs.
He is well aware of how the underwear Christmas bomber was outed by his own father.
But media mischaracterizations such as seen in this article probably contribute as to why King’s meetings are an anathema to CAIR, MSA, et al.
In all the years I have gone to churches, knowing a member was a police officer was looked upon as a PLUS.
Nothing has changed among Christians and Jews about that.
One thing Rep. King showed this AM was the CAIR poster telling Muslims to ”build a wall of separation” between themselves and the FBI, HSA, local police.
King: ‘Rage and hysteria’ over hearing unwarranted
@Nan G:
People on the politically correct multicultural left are hypersensitive on the issue.
As an aside, I used to be the personal trainer of the article writer’s parents. Very liberal Democrats.
I didn’t really find anything wrong with the article, and knowing full well the author has a liberal perspective.
Goodstein makes the same point in her article, however, that Ronald Kessler makes in his book, “The Terrorist Watch”. That recent immigrants who have come from repressive countries have a natural distrust of police and authority figures.
I believe somewhere above 30% of plots have been foiled due to Muslims tipping off the police and FBI.
WSJ: