Man Plowed His Car Into Crowd Because He Thought They Were Muslim

By Kimberly Veklerov, The San Francisco Chronicle

29 April 19

ays before Ramadan, Bay Area Muslims remained unsettled and concerned Sunday about their safety after an Army veteran drove his car into a crowd of people Tuesday in Sunnyvale in what authorities say may have been a hate crime.

Santa Clara County prosecutors charged 34-year-old Isaiah Joel Peoples with eight counts of attempted murder. Sunnyvale Police Chief Phan Ngo said outside court Friday that investigators found evidence that showed Peoples “targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith.”

The FBI confirmed Saturday it had opened a federal hate-crime investigation into the Tuesday crash.

“A lot of our reactions have been utter disgust,” said Fatima Hansia, 28, who attends the Islamic Center of Mill Valley and works at the Multicultural Center of Marin. “I just feel a pit in my stomach. It’s just never-ending. It seems like that.”

The announcement that Peoples may have been motivated by anti-Muslim bigotry came a week before the holy month of Ramadan begins, when mosque attendance spikes.

Fears of religion- and race-based violence were compounded Saturday when a gunman opened fire in a Southern California synagogue, killing a woman and injuring three others, including a child.

“People tend to think that Islamophobia, racism can’t happen in liberal metropolitan areas,” Hansia said. “But it’s very much alive.”

Hansia’s sister, Khadija Hansia-Gibson, 30, called her peers in Marin’s Jewish community after the Saturday attack to ask how they were doing. She said they “showed up for us” and attended a local vigil after the New Zealand mosque shootings that killed 50 people last month.

“We check in all the time,” said Hansia-Gibson, a board member of the Marin Interfaith Council. “It’s a matter of solidarity.”

The Mill Valley mosque recently installed a new security system to monitor the facility’s interior and exterior, including a license-plate reader, Hansia-Gibson said. Two weeks ago, the center held a self-defense class for Muslim women, where they learned maneuvers such as how to react if someone tries to grab their hijab.

Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Bay Area Council on American-Islamic Relations, said some of her friends have considered not wearing the head scarf because it could make them targets of hate.

After the terror attack in New Zealand, a sheriff’s deputy walked through the Mill Valley building with mosque leaders, telling them how to flee an active shooter, places to hide and vulnerabilities such as windows. He stood by the entrance at the start of Friday prayers to show congregants they were safe and protected, Hansia-Gibson said.

“Every time we get threatened, which is unfortunately a lot, even if not directly, we do call the police and ask for extra patrols,” she said.

A defense attorney for Peoples said his actions were the result of post-traumatic stress and mental health problems, not hatred toward Muslims. Peoples served in the Army from 2004 to 2006 and was deployed to Iraq from 2005 to 2006. He was a civil affairs specialist who attained the rank of sergeant before he was honorably discharged. Peoples then joined the Army Reserve in 2008.

The crash occurred after Peoples picked up food and was heading to Bible study, police said. Afterward, Peoples got out of his car and said, “Thank you, Jesus,” before police arrested him, witnesses said.

Seven pedestrians and cyclists were struck. A father managed to push his 9-year-old son out of the way so that he was not hit by the car. Officials said Peoples meant to hit him, which accounts for the eighth attempted-murder count.

One of the victims, a 13-year-old girl, was in a coma with swelling to her brain and had a broken pelvis, officials wrote in court papers. The left side of her skull was removed to relieve pressure.

“I often think of this region as safer, more diverse, more welcoming,” Billoo said. “Sunnyvale is a reminder that the hate rhetoric we’re seeing across the country is not stopping at the Bay Area’s doorstep.”