New York Muslim Community Patrol Faces BACKLASH From Locals
Muslim Community Patrol Faces BACKLASH From Locals. Some feel that this group may appear too much like NYPD while even local muslims are concerned that this group could cause a major backlash against their community if they are seen doing something wrong.The fears are not without merit. A few years ago a jewish group called Shomrim was criticized for being "judge and jury" after beating a man they say was committing a crime.But while many conservatives and republicans are concerned that this may be a sharia law police force the group says they are just a "community watch on steroids." They also aren't the only group with the Asian patrol and Jewish patrol groups having existed for years.
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Recently, many people in New York were shocked to discover that what they thought was a New York Police Department vehicle was actually something called the Muslim Community Patrol.
Many conservatives online were concerned that this was an independent Sharia police force that was forming because there's fear that these groups operate in other countries and other cities.
Now, that's not exactly true, but that doesn't mean locals still aren't upset.
The New York Times recently ran a story about how many neighbors consider them a nuisance.
But the context of this actually goes a bit deeper when you realize this is not the first group.
There's a Jewish group and even an Asian community patrol.
So today, let's take a look at what's going on with this Muslim community patrol and the other instances where similar things have happened over the past several years.
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From the New York Times, Muslims form community patrol.
Some neighbors say, no thanks.
The self-funded group sees itself as a neighborhood watch, but there was alarm after its cars were spotted in Brooklyn without warning or explanation.
This is one of the most important bits of context in this story.
The outfit the man is wearing is almost identical to an NYPD outfit.
The vehicle is designed to look just like the NYPD.
There's many people concerned that they're trying to impersonate officers, but let's read the story and see what people had to say.
The story starts with a man named Mr. Ali, who is among the first 30 members of the all-volunteer Muslim Community Patrol and Service, that is preparing to operate in neighborhoods in Brooklyn, with a goal of growing its fleet of two cars to five by the end of the month, and eventually expanding citywide.
The group recently held a training led by off-duty officers from the police department's 72nd precinct.
It's like a neighborhood watch but on steroids, said Noor Oba, the group's 31-year-old vice president, who lives in Sunset Park.
As word of the new patrol has begun to spread, the backlash has been swift, even among some members of the Muslim community, who have criticized the lack of information and even questioned the need for the patrol.
Like the Shamrim that patrols largely Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and the Brooklyn Asian Safety Patrol that operates mainly in Sunset Park.
The new group, believed to be the first of its kind in the country, hopes to function as extra sets of eyes and ears for the police.
The unarmed civilian patrol will offer translation services, its members are fluent in any of seven languages, explain cultural nuances, report suspicious activity, respond to traffic accidents, and even help in searches for the missing.
The Patrol has the support of Brooklyn's Borough President, Eric L. Adams, and Assistant Chief Brian J. Conroy, the Commanding Officer of Patrol Borough, Brooklyn South.
The story goes on to mention that they didn't expect the vitriol unleashed when a photo of their new double-parked patrol cars on 5th Avenue in Bay Ridge turned up December 21st on Facebook and later on Instagram.
The hostility spread after a far-right Canadian website, Rebel Media, posted a snippet on YouTube.
The ugly online comments included accusations the group was a stalking horse for Sharia law, and worse.
I expected some sort of, wait, what is that, but not, wait, what the hell is that, Mr. Raba said.
There's a big difference.
Some in the Muslim community were equally startled, but for a different reason.
The car's resemblance to NYC PD cruisers stoked anxieties rather than allayed them.
Soumya El-Rahmaim, the Adult Education and Women's Empowerment Manager at the Arab American Association of New York, based in Bay Ridge, said a single misstep from the patrol could reflect poorly on the city's entire Muslim community.
She said more outreach to community leaders was essential before patrols began operating.
Until then, she offered this message.
We don't want you near our community.
In January, PJ Media reported on the story and got a statement from the NYPD.
They said, This is not an NYPD vehicle, Sgt.
Jessica McRory told PJ Media.
The NYPD did not outfit or label this vehicle.
This group is not officially sanctioned by the NYPD and they are subject to law.
One of the questions I have is not about any conspiracies or concerns over sharia law, is whether or not this could be construed as impersonating an officer.
From a distance, they're wearing police uniforms.
From a distance, that vehicle's an NYPD vehicle.
If someone's encountering some kind of danger and runs towards them but it turns out not to be an officer, that could be really dangerous for everybody involved.
Now, it's true.
What they're wearing is not officially an NYPD uniform.
The vehicles are not NYPD vehicles, as the police department has even said.
But at a certain point, you have to question whether or not they're trying to imitate the police, which I think it's clear they are.
And that's probably got to cross the line at some point.
Now, a lot of people are concerned they're going to be enforcing Sharia law or something like that.
I think that's relatively unfounded.
Although they did give a statement about stopping people who are smoking weed or things of that nature, and that leads people to believe they might actually go one step further than the police.
Though they can't arrest people or do anything about it, I don't think there's much to worry about.
Especially when you consider that for the past few years, there's been basically the same thing in the Jewish community and the Asian community.
Now before I talk about those, I want to point out, I'm critical of any identitarian patrol group.
If you want to form a community watch, I think that's fantastic.
But when they talk about citywide and Muslim only, that's kind of disconcerting.
Why can't we just have community watch for everybody?
I'm concerned that if we have Jewish patrol, Asian patrol, Muslim patrol, people might... they might be at odds with each other, and it could actually make things worse.
But keep in mind, These people have been trained.
My understanding is they've been trained by the NYPD, and they're functioning as a community watch group.
Back in 2016, we saw this story.
Brooklyn's private Jewish patrols wield power.
Some call them bullies.
And you can see in the photo something very similar.
This looks just like an NYPD mobile command center.
It even says Mobile Command Center Crown Heights Division, but it says Shamrim on it, and it looks like there's Hebrew on the side.
But you can see the emblem.
It does appear that this was done first in the Jewish community, not the Muslim community.
The story from 2016 starts.
The call went out as a Code 100, a sex crime.
A man was masturbating in a gray Hyundai near some children on a street in Borough Park.
Responding to the radio alert, several members of the Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, a Hasidic watch group, hopped into their vehicles and headed towards the scene.
Arriving in their uniforms and skull caps, they surrounded the Hyundai, but the driver tried to flee.
When they chased him down and tackled him, the man pulled a gun.
Four of the patrolmen, known as Shamrim for the Hebrew for guards, were injured in the melee.
In the days that followed, they were hailed as heroes by a parade of politicians.
That was in September 2010.
But within three years, as the case of the gunman David Flores made its way to court, a very different narrative emerged.
When Mr. Flores went on trial, his lawyer argued that he had not exposed himself, but instead had been preemptively attacked and fired his gun only in self-defense.
An audio recording entered into evidence featured a 911 call from a witness reporting that the shamrim repeatedly kicked Mr. Flores after dragging him from his car.
When the jury reached a verdict, it acquitted the defendant of the assault, attempted murder, and the underlying lewdness allegation.
He was convicted only of a gun possession charge.
As the jurors left the courtroom, some of them were so upset, they stopped to hug the defendant's mother.
The shamrim can't decide if they're going to be the judge, jury, and executioner in the middle of the street, one of the jurors told the Daily News.
In 2014, we saw this story.
Brooklyn Asian Safety Patrol has NYPD's go-ahead.
A team of about 15 Asian-American residents calling themselves the Brooklyn Asian Safety Patrol have started watching the streets of Sunset Park with walkie-talkies, uniforms, and two NYPD-style patrol cars.
The Civilian Observation Patrol is similar to Shamrim, a volunteer Jewish watch group in communities such as Borough Park and Williamsburg.
This story also mentions that they don't have the authority to stop and detain people, but they call 911 or the precinct's death sergeant if they witness a crime or spot someone acting suspiciously.
NYPD officers can then come and stop, question, and frisk people when warranted.
It's important to understand the context behind the Muslim Community Patrol, because this has been going on for a long time.
It apparently started with Shamrim, maybe not even started with them, but they've been doing it for years.
We then saw Asian Patrol, which actually has NYPD-styled cars, and only recently we've seen the launch of Muslim Community Patrol.
So I don't think it would be fair to criticize the Muslim community for doing this when the Asian and Jewish community have done it as well.
But as I mentioned, at some point, I think it is worrisome when the patrols that are being organized are identity-based.
We should probably just have community watch.
We should probably have New York citizen patrol.
But one of the reasons that people have said the Muslim community patrol is justified is because of an increase in hate crimes.
But I think the appropriate response is just to demand more of the police departments, to get them more active and involved in community policing.
I get kind of worried when I see Asian, Jewish, Muslim, what's next?
I mean, everyone's gonna start forming their own community patrols.
How long until we have conservative community patrol?
Or feminist community patrol?
Maybe we just need local neighborhood watch groups to protect all people of all faiths, all identities, and to say that Look, if you live in New York, if you're an American, we're here for each other, not only those who represent our values or are part of our group.
But I feel like the rise of identitarianism on the left and in mainstream America, it's exemplified by what we see here.
The Jewish community doing this for years, the Asian community, and now the Muslim community.
That's the bigger issue in my opinion.
I don't think there's gonna be any Sharia law enforcement.
I think that's silly to think when a couple guys with two cars are driving around.
But what does concern me is the identitarian split.
The concern over a Muslim group or a Jewish group instead of just our communities.
And at the same time, you gotta point out these guys, they're dressing like cops.
And at some point, that's going to cause someone problems.
As we saw in the story from the Shamrim, some guy may have been exposing himself or doing something lewd in a car, and it turned out that the jury mostly saw the Shamrim as the bad guys.
Vigilante justice ends poorly.
We don't want a bunch of people running around claiming to be police.
We want a police force that we can hold accountable.
But let me know what you think in the comments below and we'll keep the conversation going.
I know there's a lot of people who are really, really concerned about this.
They believe that, you know, it's gonna turn into a Sharia patrol thing, but I think that's an exaggeration, okay?
Because while it may result in problems, for sure, while I think it probably will, I don't think it's fair to act like their goal is specifically to enforce religious ideology, more so just to police their communities and try and keep things safe and do things that other groups have done as well.
Again, I'm critical of it.
I think it's a bad move.
But I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people think.
But you comment below.
Let me know what you think.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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