Man rolls pig's head into mosque; cops laugh

AUBURN, Maine --A Lewiston man accused of rolling a pig's head into a mosque talked to a police officer beforehand and believed he'd be guilty only of littering or improperly disposing of animal parts, according to court documents.

Brent Matthews said he ran into a longtime friend who's a police officer at the Lewiston Mall a week before the July 3 incident and asked about the ramifications of leaving a pig's head in a doorway, the documents said.

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A police spokesman said Syphers warned Matthews that using a pig's head as a prank could be considered a hate crime. That suggests Matthews mentioned targeting Somalis.

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In court documents, Matthews said law enforcement authorities did not treat the incident seriously. The investigating officers, the officer who drove Matthews to the jail and jail intake officials laughed about the incident, Matthews said in court documents. Matthews claimed that one of the officers said, "I wish I had thought of that."

Maine Community Denounces Mosque Attack

By DAVID SHARP, The Associated Press
Jul 13, 2006 2:15 AM (26 days ago)
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LEWISTON, Maine - Earlier this month, Muslim men participating in a serene evening prayer ritual at Lewiston Auburn Islamic Center were sharply interrupted: A severed, frozen pig's head, slightly larger than a basketball, was thrown into the mosque.

The man charged in the incident, 33-year-old Brent Matthews of Lewiston, told police it was a joke. But community leaders and others say the act was a hate crime, and the incident has heightened concerns that local discrimination against Somalis has not eased.

"Our message is simple: An attack on any house of worship is an attack on all houses of worship," Rabbi Hillel Katzir told a group of about 150 Wednesday including the town's mayor, governor, students and community activists who rallied in support of the Somali worshippers.

Muslims are prohibited from eating pork, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations contends the act was an insult upon Islam. The Rev. Jodi Hayashida from First Universalist Church in Auburn said the incident was no harmless prank. Instead, she said it represented a type of "casual hatred" that demanded a response from the Lewiston-Auburn community.

http://www.examiner.com/a-174733~Maine_Community_Denounces_Mosque_Attack.html