2 from South Carolina made threatening calls to Charlotte mosque, police say
Police have charged a 19-year-old and a juvenile with communicating threats in connection with several harassing phone calls to the Islamic Center of Charlotte last month.
Both are from the area of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police spokesman Mike Allinger told The Charlotte Observer Monday evening.
“After the initial investigation, officers identified the callers who admitted to the calls and apologized,” Allinger said in an email.
A caller on May 23 made a reference to 9/11 and “terrorists,” and could be heard saying in an audio recording of the call, “I’ll blow you harder than 9/11,” the Observer previously reported.
The caller rambled on, despite being told of the recording, but he was direct in his threat against the center, Center spokesman Jibril Hough said.
The person who answered the call at the center in May told police they didn’t want to pursue charges, Allinger said.
But, he said, “After subsequent conversations and a further investigation, officers obtained a criminal summons from the Magistrate’s Office for communicating threats for the 19-year-old suspect. A juvenile arrest was completed for the juvenile suspect.”
Allinger didn’t name the 19-year-old but said CMPD will update its statement on Tuesday “with more context and information.”
‘Inappropriate’ call
The Observer called a phone number linked to the call. A man who answered said a 14-year-old family friend in his office “did something stupid” by calling the Islamic Center.
The man, who identified himself only as “Dave,” said the call to the center “was inappropriate” but that he didn’t believe the 14-year-old “made any type of threat.”
The man soon texted the Observer an apology related to what happened.
“I would like the center to know it was very inappropriate,” the man texted, “and that it will be made known to any parties involved it absolutely will never happen again.”
On Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded a hate-crime probe by state and federal law enforcement.
The group’s demand came the same day Allinger said CMPD wouldn’t pursue criminal charges in the case.
“The investigation concluded that the verbiage communicated during the call did not rise to a criminal level,” Allinger said at the time.
Hough said CMPD further investigated after he complained to Chief Johnny Jennings.
Monday, Hough said the center staffer who answered the call told CMPD he wanted an apology from the caller, “but that didn’t mean he didn’t want possible charges.”
“We still have people in our community, about half our community, who felt there should have been terrorist charges, too,” Hough said.
But he also thanked Jennings for ensuring “the case got the attention it deserved.”
In the past, he said, CMPD failed to pursue charges with similar threatening calls.
On Tuesday, a national Muslim civil rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it welcomed the charges.
The council hopes that anyone convicted in the case “will be given an opportunity to learn about the American Muslim community and about why threats to any house of worship are unacceptable,” spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said in a news release.
