CAIR Has Its Way with the Fairfax County Police

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has a long history of ingratiating itself with government officials, alleging anti-Muslim bias, and demanding — and sometimes obtaining — special treatment for Muslims. All these elements are found in CAIR’s interaction with the Fairfax County (Virginia) Police Department.

In 2006, the FCPD ended its use of counter-terror and counter-infiltration training programs after CAIR and a group of Muslim officers complained that the courses present Islam in a negative light. One of the officers taking offense was Sgt. Weiss Rasool, who sports close ties to CAIR. He also was brazenly engaging in the type of infiltration that the scuttled courses aim to prevent:

Rasool put his religion ahead of his adopted country when he alerted a fellow member of his mosque that he was under federal surveillance. At his Muslim brother’s request, he searched a police database and confirmed that FBI agents were tailing him.

[…]

That’s when agents discovered the police sergeant had breached their database at least 15 times to look up names of other contacts, including relatives, to see if they showed up on the terrorist watch list.

Rasool pled guilty but was sentenced to just two years probation on April 22, 2008. The FCPD has even allowed him to remain on the force during its internal investigation. As Paul Sperry writes, “The leniency afforded Rasool is unprecedented, given how he copped to the crime — and not just any crime, but one that betrayed his fellow officers and country.”

In addition, CAIR recently intervened in the Fairfax County case of Dr. Mustafa Abbasi, who consented to a search at a traffic stop and was found to have loose pills and prescriptions made out to others. CAIR’s national legal counsel quickly slammed “the Fairfax County Police Department’s repeated and relentless attacks on American Muslims” — an odd claim, considering the FCPD’s cozy relations with CAIR. For example, the police chief praised the lobby group at its 2006 national fundraising dinner.

Among other things, CAIR demanded that it be invited to provide workplace sensitivity and diversity training to the FCPD. This is a classic CAIR shakedown: concoct examples of discrimination and then offer its “training” as a remedy. No doubt this program would be designed to dissuade officers from addressing issues of radical Islam.

Abbasi’s no-contest plea to a single count of drug possession clearly legitimates the charges against him. Will the Fairfax County Police Department now reject biased anti-bias training from a terror-linked organization? Or will it continue its impersonation of the Keystone Cops?

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David J. Rusin

David J. Rusin investigates and combats nonviolent radical Islam in the United States and other Western countries for Islamist Watch. His research has highlighted the dangers posed by Islamist-leaning individuals with government security clearances, debunked the myth that American Muslims are more likely than other minorities to suffer hate crimes, and tracked the progress of Philadelphia’s “black Muslim enclave.” He has been the curator of Islamist Watch’s extensive news archive for more than half a decade and previously served as the project’s director. Prior to joining the Forum, Mr. Rusin worked as an astrophysicist. He also spent two years as the Philadelphia editor at PJ Media