No Hate Crime or Other Charges in Alleged Anti-Muslim Bias

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Charges won’t be pressed in the case of an Arab-American Muslim man who said he was racially assaulted after he spoke Arabic with his children at a Dearborn Kroger grocery store last February, apparently angering another customer to the point of a physical confrontation.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Friday there is insufficient evidence to prosecute the two brothers – one of them a 46-year-old from Dearborn and the other a 44-year-old from Kentucky – who allegedly taunted the man’s daughter for wearing a hijab. The two men had also reportedly asked for charges in the incident.

“After months of investigation and follow-up work, we simply do not have sufficient, credible and admissible information to be able to proceed on either the complaint or cross complaint,” Worthy said, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press. “We spent considerable time and resources trying to get to the truth in this case so that a charging decision could be made using the appropriate legal standards.”

Related:

• Dearborn Man Says He Was Attacked for Speaking Arabic

The alleged assault raised concerns among Arab Americans about their safety during a time of increased global anxiety over Islamic terrorism, and, closer to home, the shooting deaths of three Arab-American Muslim students in North Carolina on Feb. 10. About 40 percent of Dearborn residents are Arab American, and many of them are Muslims.

In February, the FBI said the altercation didn’t rise to the level of a hate crime.

Kathy McMillan Bazzi, 60, told the Free Press in February that she witnessed the altercation.

“I hear ‘ISIS,’ I hear ‘terrorist,’ I hear ‘go back to your country’ and ‘raghead,’ “Bazzi said. Then, “all of a sudden, the man is punching this Arabic man, fists started flying.”