Police: Vandalism probe lacks evidence of race motive

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SCTimes | by Sam Louwagie | August 18, 2015 | Vandalism to several vehicles over the weekend has left some St. Cloud residents feeling unsafe and wondering whether they are being targeted for their ethnicity. But St. Cloud police say they have not found any evidence that the crimes were racially motivated.

A number of residents of Quarry Commons Apartment Homes and Edjwood Estates Apartments woke up on Sunday morning to find the windows, windshields, bumpers and other parts of their cars smashed in.

Haji Yussuf, who lives nearby, said more than 20 cars were vandalized. Lul Hersi, who lives at Quarry Commons, said 18 of the damaged vehicles belonged to people of the Somali community.

Police records show 10 reported incidences of vandalism — seven in the parking lot at Edjwood Estates and three on the road next to Quarry Commons, which are about a half mile apart. St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said more vehicles could have been vandalized but not reported to police.

“Some of the people that live there are very poor. This is their livelihood, and this is how they take their kids to school,” Haji Yussuf said. “This vandalism is not right.”

Some victims of the vandalism say it has made them feel threatened. The crimes followed a series of Facebook posts threatening violence against the Somali community that St. Cloud police investigated.

UniteCloud.org, an effort to improve relationships among St. Cloud-area residents, displayed the Facebook posts as screenshots, including one from Aug. 9 that shows a man with a cut and bruised face claiming he was robbed by Somalis. UniteCloud’s display also shows Facebook statements about getting revenge and “hunting season.”

Hassan Yussuf, a St. Cloud resident, said the vandalism showed a progression from social media abuse to destruction of property, leading community members to fear what would come next.

“I think this is not only ignorance, this is intentional hatred,” Hassan Yussuf said. “This was not a threat, this was violence.”

Police spoke with three of the people who made the Facebook posts before the vandalism occurred, Anderson said. Two of them do not live in St. Cloud. The man who made the initial post would not cooperate with police and did not want his incident investigated.

Police are actively investigating the vandalism and are working to build suspects, according to Cmdr. Jeff Oxton. But they said no evidence indicates the Facebook posts were connected.

“We were not able to find any nexus between those postings and these incidents of vandalism,” Anderson said. “We just weren’t.”

A group of citizens, including several victims of the vandalism, met with Anderson and Mayor Dave Kleis on Monday. They expressed frustration that city officials would not condemn the acts as a hate crime, and wanted to be assured that something more violent would not happen next. Hassan Yussuf said the group did not get what it wanted from the meeting.

“We achieved zero,” he said.

Anderson said he tried to assure citizens at the meeting that police take all cases of vandalism seriously.

“We don’t want people going around causing destruction to other people’s property,” he said. “We won’t tolerate that, period, no matter whom it’s directed toward.”

“This is not just a Somali issue or an Islamic issue,” Hersi said. “We want to live in a safe community.”

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