‘I am Satan chosen son.’ Charlotte mosque reports ‘creepy’ email threat to FBI.
Local Muslims are on alert after the Islamic Center of Charlotte received its most disturbing threat in memory — an email that said “every mosque from here to Bahrain will turn to dust,’ center spokesman Jibril Hough said.
“You have no Islamic rights in this country, you’re children and women are ours,” the email began.
“No mayor, no city, county, state police, fbi, cia, or the military can stop me,” the e-mailer wrote, according to a copy of the email provided to The Charlotte Observer and other news outlets by Hough on Friday.
“I am Satan chosen son, and All religious teachings god or even Allah will be no more,” according to the email, whose writer also said “my power supersede the president of the United States.”
Hough said he spoke with an assistant special agent in the Charlotte office of the FBI, but the agent told him the letter doesn’t rise to the level of a threat against which the FBI could charge and arrest someone.
On Saturday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., called on local, state and federal law enforcement to investigate the email. The council is the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
“While we did advise the email did not appear to be a federal crime, that does not mean we will not attempt to identify who wrote it and make contact with them,” FBI Charlotte office spokeswoman Shelley Lynch told the Observer in an email on Monday.
The Observer on Friday sent a note to the address listed on the threatening email but did not receive a response.
‘Definitely a threat’
Hough said he supports everyone’s First Amendment rights, but he feels law enforcement could at least visit the man who sent the email and ask why he sent it to the center, he said.
What the FBI agent told him “is pretty much what we’ve been told throughout the year, because we get random stuff from time to time, emails, letters, things like that,” Hough said.
“Personally, I think it’s someone who should be taken a look at,” he said. “And we’ve seen it time and time again. They don’t take any of these threats seriously enough.”
Hough said the Islamic Center has no idea where the man lives.
The Charlotte Observer searched for the man on Nexis, which provides public records of people across the country, including phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses and criminal histories. The Observer searched the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Virginia and Tennessee and found dozens of men with the same first and last names but only one with the same middle initial — an 80-year-old Floridian.
Hough said the email “is definitely a threat. It’s a threat on so many different levels. Somewhere the letter says do away with all Muslims. And with us being visible ... we are one of the targets, and we have been one of the targets.”
“Does that mean we’re going to go into hiding or not going to attend the mosque?” Hough said. “No. But it’s just another reminder we are a target, and we have to remain as vigilant as we can.
“If it was one of us doing it?” Hough asked. “You’d best believe they’d be looking into it. When these things come up, they’re not looked at as seriously, unless it was one of us.
“You have to wait until someone dies to do something?” Hough said. “I just don’t get it.”
‘Dirty and creepy’ email
Hough said the email was “dirty and creepy. It’s on another level. It’s not your average threat.”
“This is a guy who probably thinks a lot about what’s going on,” Hough said. “He’s probably frustrated. He’s probably into a lot of conspiracy theories and a guy who could possibly do something.
“He just seems like a level higher than your average guy who goes on the internet and says he’s going to do something.”
The Islamic Center receives “probably a couple (of voicemail and email threats) throughout the year, but not on this level,” Hough said. “I’ve never seen one like this one ... and it deserves a closer look.”
Hough said local Muslims have seen no rise in threats during the latest chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the email they received on Monday doesn’t mention the warring factions.
Hough said members of center have undergone threat-awareness and self-defense training over the past four or five years, and some have guns in case of an attacker
“People in general need to know that we’re not asking to be treated any different than anyone else.,” Hough said. “But people need to know we are targets.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2021 at 11:41 AM.