When a fire alarm went off Saturday at the Westchase Marriott during a seminar he was holding for Houston WorldFest, Hunter Todd decided to do some investigating.
After the 200 attendees filed back into the meeting room when the hotel gave an all-clear, Todd, the chief executive officer for the 46th annual WorldFest film festival, approached a woman sitting in the front of the room who was wearing traditional Muslim covering.
Todd asked to search her backpack. He said he was “super polite” to the woman, who opened the backpack. She had just a few water bottles inside. That’s when another attendee, University of Houston student Mike Rudd, confronted Todd and accused him of racially profiling the woman.
Rudd, a UH senior, described the woman as a fellow student at the university, where he is studying film and media production.
On his Facebook page, Rudd states he asked Todd why he had demanded to search the woman’s bag, and that Todd told him, “because she is Muslim and a suspicious character, now sit down.”
Boston on his mind
In an interview Tuesday with the Houston Chronicle, Todd acknowledged that he had singled out the woman because of the burqa she wore.
He said he initially did not know if the person was a man or woman.
Todd denied racially profiling the woman. He said he could not tell the race or gender of the person wearing the burqa.
Todd said he was on guard because of the Boston Marathon bombings just days earlier that killed three people and injured at least 260.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Allow a terrorist to blow up 200 people?”
Actions ‘unacceptable’
Rudd told the Chronicle he was offended by any racial profiling, but especially of a classmate.
“That’s really the only motivation I have,” he said. “I just think that behavior is unacceptable.”
Attempts to reach the Muslim student on Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Mustafaa Carroll, who heads the local chapter of Council of American-Islamic Relations-Texas, said the incident hurts Muslim-American relations.
“Every time you have one of these incidents, it gives people cause for concern because there’s so much anti-Muslim rhetoric out there,” he said. “The fact is that most of the terrorists attacks in this country are carried out by non-Muslims, who pretty much operate under the radar. But the focus is on Muslim or Middle Eastern people.
“We’re frustrated,” Carroll said, “because we do so much to try to bring understanding, and nothing we do or say seems to make any difference.”
Equal treatment
Minister Robert Muhammad, southwest regional representative of the Nation of Islam, agreed that Todd had engaged in racial profiling.
“Her attire is not the profile of a terrorist,” he said. “The authorities are not looking for females wearing hijabs and burqas. Terrorists come in all colors and all religions.
“Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City bomber) wasn’t wearing a burqa. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine shooters) weren’t wearing burqas. The Boston Marathon brothers (bombers) weren’t wearing burqas,” the minister noted.
“If he (Todd) is going to have the behavior where he doesn’t treat all the citizens in this great diverse city equally,” Muhammad suggested, “then he needs to take his festival elsewhere.”