Excerpt:
Qazi Qayyoom, an imam in Queens, says he believes the New York Police Department is keeping his community safe, and if that means some Muslims are monitored, so be it.
"The police, they come to us and say, 'Is everything OK? How can we help you?" he said Monday. "They are not trying to hurt us. For this, I want to say thank you and tell them I support them."
Qayyoom and about three dozen other people on Monday attended the first rally held by Muslims in support of the NYPD following a series of Associated Press stories detailing the police department's secret surveillance of mosques, Muslim-owned businesses and college campuses across the Northeast since Muslim extremists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, killing thousands of people.