The Saturday evening knife attack at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, that left eight injured and the attacker dead was reportedly perpetrated by Dahir Adan, a 22-year-old ethnic Somali who was born in Kenya but lived in the United States for 15 years. Though ISIS claims Adan was a “soldier” working on their behalf, his father told the Minneapolis Star Tribune he had “no suspicion” his son was involved in terrorist activities.
St. Cloud police Chief Anderson on whether they've found any ties to terrorist groups: "Nothing so far."
— Kyle Potter (@kpottermn) September 19, 2016
St. Cloud, population 66,297, is about 10 percent Somali, and the predominately white city’s Somali population has grown rapidly in the last decade. Nonetheless, St. Cloud has established a reputation for Islamophobia. In recent years, Somali businesses have been vandalized, pornographic posters of the prophet Mohammad have been plastered on light posts, a plan to build a mosque has been derailed, social media mobs have mobilized for “hunting season” on Somalis, and Somali kids have been bullied in schools. A string of anti-Somali incidents prompted visits last year from both Gov. Mark Dayton (D) and representatives of the U.S. Department of Education.
St. Cloud is the worst place in Minnesota to be Somali | City Pages“Hey, you!” a woman’s voice suddenly brayed from the next car. “Hey, you! I’m talking to you, Somalian lady.” Hersi…www.citypages.comSo it’s notable that on Monday morning, St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson shut down Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy when Doocy asked if he shared Donald Trump’s concern about refugees representing a “cancer from within” that presents an existential threat to communities like his.
“I can tell you that the vast majority of all of our citizens — no matter their ethnicity — are fine, hard-working people, and now is not the time for us to be divisive,” Anderson responded. “We already have a very cohesive community, and I expect that this will draw us even closer together. But at the end of the day, our job is public safety, period.”
Asked how he works with the Somali community, Anderson replied that he does so in the same way he does with any other group — by talking to them instead of making gross generalizations.
“We actually work very well not just with our East African community, but all of our community,” he said. “We meet regularly with any number of people, whether they are advocates for a specific ethnicity or different cause… We have established and maintained a very good rapport with our East African community and our community at large.”
Watch:
There’s no evidence that St. Cloud’s growing population has contributed to increased crime rates — in fact, quite the opposite. Since Somalis first started moving to the community in significant numbers about 15 years ago, the city’s crime rate has steadily trended downward.
In general, the notion that refugees are more likely to commit acts of terror than people born in the United States is a myth.