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Philadelphia and the Burqa Bandits
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Some scoff
at the idea that face-covering Islamic veils endanger
public safety in any Western nation, let alone the United States, but
Philadelphians do not have the luxury of blissful ignorance. As recent events
highlight, their city has become the American epicenter of robberies and
murders carried out by criminals disguised as fundamentalist Muslim women.
Several factors help explain Philadelphia's place at the forefront of this
trend. Will other U.S. cities be next?
The latest
wave of burqa banditry to target Philadelphia began at a branch of More
Bank in the East Oak Lane neighborhood two days before Christmas. Following
similar heists on January 6, March 14, March 20, and April 4, the
Philadelphia Police Department and FBI issued a wanted
flier for a pair
of black males in "Muslim-like clothing covering their heads and
bodies." Surveillance
images
indicate that the outfits include face veils (niqabs)
and "burqa-like robes," to quote one news
item, leaving just the eyes visible. The same Wells Fargo branch struck
on April 4 was then hit
again on April 13, after which Muslim groups offered
$20,000 for information leading to the perpetrators. No arrests or
further bank robberies have been reported.
The criminal applications of this attire also
were on display during an April 18 homicide at a
barbershop in Upper Darby, a township bordering West Philadelphia. Police
believe that a love triangle inspired Sharif Wynn to enter with a gun and
demand money from the barber, Michael Turner. Wynn insists that he merely
meant to scare the man, but officers say that he shot
Turner intentionally at point-blank range. The police superintendent has revealed
that the attacker was "dressed in Muslim female garb, was covered from
head to toe. The only thing that was showing was his eyes." Authorities identified
Wynn through interviews and his electronic trail.
Though assembling a complete history of
niqab-aided crimes is hindered by the unknown consistency of media reporting,
the seven incidents outlined above appear to be the most that the
Philadelphia area has suffered in any four-month period to date. However, the
city earned its reputation as a burqa banditry hot spot long before this
recent spike.
The worst
episode occurred on May 3, 2008, when three Muslim
men — two dressed in female Islamic apparel and face veils — held up a
Bank of America branch inside a supermarket in the Port Richmond section of
Philadelphia. Police Sergeant Stephen
Liczbinski gave chase, only to be shot to death by robber Howard Cain,
whom officers killed shortly thereafter. Cain's
accomplices were caught, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life.
The Philadelphia area endured many additional
cases between then and now. On November 16, 2009, a man
in a face veil attempted to rob a Bank of America location in the suburb
of Drexel Hill, but he left empty-handed after an employee played dumb; DNA
from a niqab discarded near the scene later led to an arrest. Other
unsuccessful perpetrators have included an armed
man in a "long black dress … and a hijab covering his head and face"
at a Sovereign Bank branch in the city's Mount Airy neighborhood on February
1, 2011, and a niqab-wearing
man at a branch of the same bank in Woodlynne, New Jersey, just across
the river from Philadelphia, on June 13, 2011.
Women have gotten into the act as well.
Police arrested Lashawnda
Jones in December 2010 following robberies of four TD Bank branches
within a 40-mile radius of Philadelphia during the prior two months. Though
Jones had sported a niqab in the earlier
heists, she used only a headscarf (hijab)
for the final
one, in which she lured tellers to the vault, brandished firearms, and
stole $103,000. Soon after showing her face, she was behind bars.
A blog
post by Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes collects more examples
from the area. Similar cases throughout the West — including many in Europe
and a few others in North America — are listed too, but crimes of this nature
occur with surprising frequency in the City of Brotherly Love. "What is
it about Philadelphia, burqas, and robberies?" he wonders.
The demographics of Philadelphia, whose Muslim
population is among the largest in the U.S., make it particularly fertile
ground. While only a very small percentage of Philadelphians wear niqabs,
they are sufficiently
numerous to be seen with regularity. Desensitizing the public to this
radical attire opens many doors.
"Whatever happened to the mask?" a
local imam said
in response to recent crimes, referring to ski masks often employed by
robbers. Simply put, the increasing prevalence of face-cloaking Islamic garb
is rendering traditional masks obsolete. Both provide anonymity, but a niqab
grants the wearer access that a mask does not. Whereas spotting a masked
individual entering a bank or business strongly indicates a robbery, someone
in a niqab doing so may represent just another patch in Philadelphia's
multicultural quilt. Indecision about the wearer's motives — indeed, most
women in niqabs do not have criminal intent — buys crucial time for a heist
to unfold on the perpetrator's terms. The relatively common sight of niqabs,
as opposed to masks, also enables a robber to travel to the crime scene in
the same face-blocking apparel, further lowering the chances of being
identified.
Moreover, they take advantage of political
correctness, which cautions against scrutinizing people who don such clothes.
A 2009
article in Philadelphia magazine captures how this atmosphere
contributed to the robbery that left Sergeant Liczbinski dead: "To
Western eyes, two of them became hijabi — Muslim women who cover
themselves — by pulling on full-length black burqas. They became, in a sense,
invisible. The bank sat inside a busy supermarket, where shoppers would
surely notice the two monoliths moving among them; but just as surely, those
shoppers would pass by with eyes cast down, or aside, or beyond. They may be
drawn for a moment by the sheer otherness of the hijabi, but
would dependably look away with a twinge of awkward guilt for having
noticed." The journalist explains, "So complete were the robbers'
identities — so perfect their invisibility — that the store's security
cameras recorded the manager as he talked to an emergency dispatcher, and
walked out between two of the disguised figures," utterly oblivious to
them.
Islamists promote this cultural paralysis.
Case in point: the victimhood narrative pushed in the wake of the latest Philadelphia
robberies. One imam declared
them "a hate crime against Muslims," as they allegedly put Muslim
women "in danger of being stereotyped, victimized, and ostracized."
City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. doubled
down on the persecution theme: "In many ways I'm reminded of the
shooting of Trayvon Martin, stereotyped because of a garment called a
hoodie." Ibrahim
Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
chimed in as well. "Islamophobes love to see this sort of thing, because
it gives them fuel to express their hatred," he claimed.
"Now they can say, 'See, this is why Muslim women shouldn't dress the
way they do.'"
Therefore, banks must run the gauntlet of
"Islamophobia" charges if they pursue a seemingly obvious remedy:
forbidding attire that hides customers' faces from security cameras.
Financial institutions nationwide have worked to deter more conventional
robberies, reportedly with some success, by
implementing dress
codes that ban
hats, hoods, and sunglasses, but Islamists have fought restrictions on
headgear. When disputes
arose several years ago over women being asked to remove
headscarves or be served
in alternate areas, CAIR characteristically demanded
more sensitive policies and issued dubious
calls for federal probes. Just as predictably, the banks and credit
unions tended to cave and exempt
hijabs. No doubt robbers note the deference toward Islam enforced by
Islamists — a phenomenon exacerbated in cities like Philadelphia with copious
Muslims and an aggressive CAIR chapter.
Many Philadelphia Muslims cover their hair,
so banks encounter substantial ambient pressure not to adopt rules that could
affect any religiously motivated garments. This author recently visited
branches of six major banks in Philadelphia and found only one — a PNC Bank
location — with a sign requesting that customers take off hats, hoods, and
sunglasses. (Coincidence or not, there is no record of PNC Bank being struck
by burqa bandits.) As if to dissuade others from launching similar policies,
Amara Chaudhry of CAIR-Philadelphia already
has bemoaned, in the words of an MSNBC.com
article, how a Muslim "was not allowed to enter the branch [of one
bank] before first removing her hijab, making her feel as naked as removing
her blouse and bra." CAIR officials have not specifically addressed
niqabs in banks or complained of women being denied service because of them,
but the year is still young.
How to proceed? The ultimate solution would
entail proscribing
face-covering apparel everywhere in public, as France
and Belgium
have done. Yet American banks enjoy plenty of leeway to ban it on their
premises right now, assuming that they ignore CAIR's specious threats and frequently
bogus
tales
of Muslim victimhood. The First Amendment may protect niqabs on the streets,
but banks are private entities and thus not bound by it. They also are not
listed in Title
II of the 1964 U.S.
Civil Rights Act among "places of public accommodation" where
religiously discriminating against clients is illegal — not that
faith-neutral dress codes are "discriminatory" anyway, regardless
of Islamists' pleas. In addition, though numerous states, including Pennsylvania,
have civil rights laws that are more expansive than the federal version, the
various requirements to accommodate religious practices of customers or employees are
not absolute and typically must be balanced against the hardships imposed on
others.
One can debate whether banks should tolerate
hijabs, which often obscure less of the face than hoodies or caps, but it is
inconceivable that banks are somehow obligated to welcome niqabs that
purposefully hide the face and burden others by undermining safety in a venue
where security is paramount. If ski masks are not permitted, niqabs should
not be either. Drawing the line with clear policies that prohibit all
criminal-friendly garments on bank property would be a significant step in
the appropriate direction — and almost certainly a legal one.
Legend has it that when the infamous Willie
Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, "Because that's
where the money is." If Philadelphia's niqab-clad outlaws were asked why
they disguise themselves as Muslim women, they might offer an equally
straightforward answer: because it works. So long as religious garb
resembling the dress of bandits proliferates and sensitivity toward it trumps
security, the stage is set for actual bandits to adopt such clothing for
their nefarious ends, just as terrorists regularly don
burqas and niqabs in Muslim-majority nations. (Fewer reports of veiled
robbers
emerge from the Islamic world, but one suspects that these crimes would be
less likely to reach Western media than high-profile terrorist attacks.)
Situated at the leading edge of this problem
in the U.S., Philadelphians have a special responsibility to find effective
solutions. Other American cities must stay alert as well, because the
ingredients that make Philadelphia a prime target exist elsewhere; Detroit
comes to mind. If Philadelphia manages to curtail the trend, its approach can
be a template for comparable cities to follow. But if it fails, criminals in
the country's niqab-heavy metropolitan areas may soon thank the trailblazing
burqa bandits of Philadelphia for having provided a successful model of their
own.
Related Topics: Head
Coverings / Dress, Legal,
Lobby Groups,
Mosques /
Imams, Multiculturalism,
Police / FBI
| David
J. Rusin This text
may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole
with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication,
and original URL.
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