Meetings will begin Saturday, Feb. 13, aimed at helping overcome hostility and fear of Muslims in Riverside after the Dec. 2 terrorist attack, carried out by Muslims who once lived in the city.
The monthly series, Riverside Together: Fellowship Instead of Fear, will be sponsored by the Riverside Human Relations Commission and held at houses of worship and City Hall to help deter the kind of anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic incidents that have taken place in Riverside since the San Bernardino attack – including people being threatened or followed.
Muslims have been followed in stores, said Human Relations Commissioner Monrow Mabon, associate pastor at Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Riverside.
A man approached the traditionally dressed wife of a Muslim Riverside Human Relations commissioner at a Riverside department store and told her not to go into the knife section, said Mabon, a retired Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant.
“After San Bernardino, there was a lot of incidents that arose where members of the Islamic community and the Jewish community were targets of unfriendly activity,” Mabon said. “People started to think all Muslims were extremists.”
Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, lived on Riverside’s Tomlinson Avenue until about six months before their attack on the Inland Regional Center, where they killed 14 people and wounded 22 others. They lived in Redlands at the time. Farook had attended the Islamic Center of Riverside.
The mass shooting and a gun battle with police later that day – which injured two officers and killed the couple – were carried out with assault weapons bought by the couple’s former next-door neighbor on Tomlinson, Enrique Marquez. The Muslim convert allegedly plotted with Farook a few years earlier to kill people at Riverside City College and on the 91.
Riverside City Councilman Andy Melendrez, whose Ward 2 used to include the mosque, asked commissioners to open a community discussion about religious differences after hearing about the backlash.
Four events – with panels featuring leaders from Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths, elected officials, law enforcement and community members – will try to bridge the gap between Muslims and the larger community, Mabon said.
Meetings are open to the public and will start with social gatherings, followed by forums. The first will be at 2 p.m. at Allen Chapel, 4009 Locust St., Riverside. The final one will be held at City Hall. Other dates have not been set.