Guards and good neighbors: mosques protect members amid attacks

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http://news.yahoo.com/guards-good-neighbors-mosques-protect-members-amid-attacks-153456208.html

When members arrived at the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque in Hawthorne, Calif., on Sunday, they saw that the building had been vandalized: a spray-painted "Jesus" covered the front gate along a busy six-lane road, similar to the "Jesus is the way" graffiti that had appeared on the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, a few minutes away.

Then they saw the hand grenade.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad determined that the grenade was fake. But 24 hours after police arrested a 23-year-old man for setting fire to another Southern California mosque in Coachella Valley, the incident added to Muslim Americans' worries that a toxic combination of public fear and anti-Muslim political rhetoric is setting the scene for a record number of attacks on individuals and their houses of worship, leaving some members afraid to attend services.

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"Anecdotally, there is no question that we have had something of a flood of anti-Muslim hatred and hate crimes," the Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok told Reuters. Those crimes range from leaving pigs' head and feces at mosque doors, to drive-by threats, to physically attacking people, including a northern Californian man who was hit and splashed with coffee by a state employee while praying in a park.

But mosques' leaders attempting to protect their congregations have allies: local police, and, in at least two cases, the Department of Homeland Security. And they'd like more: although more mosques are turning to armed guards for protection, many continue to offer outreach opportunities to the greater community, hoping to break down misconceptions about American Muslims.

According to Reuters, the Homeland Security has helped Muslim centers in Arizona and Virginia to double-check their safety plans. Other mosques are relying on local forces to keep out would-be lone wolf attackers, as well as beefing up measures like alarms.