Detectives are investigating to see whether a rock throwing incident at a Denver mosque is a hate crime.
It happened at the Colorado Muslim Society on Parker Road just after 1 a.m. on Sunday.
Surveillance cameras captured a middle-aged white male lurking outside of the mosque for several minutes before trying to open each door to the locked building.
Mosque congregants say the building is fenced off and locked each evening, meaning the man had to jump the fence to gain access to the building.
The suspect is seen walking with a hand in his pocket for four minutes around the mosque until at 1:09 a.m. he is seen picking up a nearby rock and hurling it through a front-facing window.
“It is in the back of [our] minds when [we] see something like this, said lifelong mosque congregant and spokeswoman Iman Jodeh, whose father helped establish the mosque 35 years ago.
It wasn't a big rock, maybe four inches across, but it reached 50 feet inside of the building.
No one was inside or injured.
“This mosque does mean a lot to me personally and it hurt me to know that someone lashed out in such a violent way,” Jodeh said.
Those here say it fits a disturbing trend as the mosque has endured several attacks including an arson attempt in 2015 and hate mail sent in November of 2016.
“Yeah we are jaded and we are getting frustrated and we are sad and we are a little mad, but the fact remains that we are American as well,” Jodeh explained.
While congregants say they are saddened by what happened, they want to give the man in the surveillance video the benefit of the doubt, citing forgiveness is ingrained in their religion.
The mosque plans to install more security cameras to avoid similar incidents in the future.
