Chairman grassley welcome, everybody, to a very important hearing that we have. Thank you for being patient while we get started here. Ill have an opening statement. Senator feinstein will. And then well godirble introduce our first panel. Then when were done there go to the second panel and introduce that at that time. The Senate Judiciary committee today is holding a hearing that we entitled responses to the increase in religious hate crimes. This is a subject of great bipartisan interest in the committee. Religious hate crimes harm victims. And also have a great impact on communities. Many of these crimes would never have been committed but for hatred. They run counter to americas values such as religious freedom and tolerance. Americans have the right to be safe against those who would treat them as members of religious groups rather than as individuals. Religious hate crimes are on the rise. Crimes against jewish people are the most common religious hate crimes, and they have incr
people from the mosque? what more can you tell us about the area? it s a mix of people really. i was able to spe to a number of them. a lot of the people were just locals. there s a number of mosques in this area. so, when they heard about this incident, many people came from those mosques to see what was going on and there were a few people who were lingering around who were at the scene when it happened. one man that i spoke with who was an eyewitness was escorted from behind the police cordon back outside. he said that he gave police his statement and then talking to him, we were able to get an idea of what happened. he told us that this van careened into a crowd of people after a worship. and talking to this man, he said this is a family mosque. this is a neighborhood mosque. people from around here go and
just a little while ago, we had people over here, muslims from the community who performed a prayer. this is a community who does want answers tonight, a lot o people gathered here trying to find out from the police. so far not a lot of information is coming out. what we are hearing is coming from these eyewitnesses. and one man i spoke with was just, as he described, inches away from this van when it hit a group of people. this is a group of people that was just finishing up prayers which they perform at night during ramadan, late night prayer. people were leaving the mosque gathering around. that s when he saw in van come careening in and hitting the people. and he said it didn t look like he was trying to stop. it looked like he was trying to accelerate into this crowd. he said a number of people he saw, at least five were hit by this van. one person was immobilized, was not responsive to people trying
after that van hit. now, it s unclear if the driver of the van tried to get out or if the people were able to pull him out of the van. but from what the eyewitness told me that locals were able to apprehend him very quickly. and this is a man, according to the eyewitness and were able to hand him over to police where he was then arrested. we also have heard that there could have been another person. we haven t been able to confirm that. our eyewitness said there could have been two people, but definitely the driver of this van was apprehended and handed over to the police. this is a mosque, we are told, in this neighborhood, it s not the largest one, but it s one that many people go to. families go to to pray, especially now during ramadan during the islamic holy month. people were gathering to pray and this van one thing interesting from what this eyewitness told me about this
citizens to say we re all in this together. you have the mayor of london who is a muslim. it says so much about the people of london they elected the first major city in the west they have a muslim mayor is in london. so, the people there are good people. too often i think, even myself, are fixated on the extreme voices. that doesn t define the people there and hope the muslim community there e enbracing tolerance and you see on twitter, they will never call a white man a terrorist, that s a theme we hear a lot. let s see what happens. if this man is a terrorist, the mayor of london and they will deem it a terrorist attack. turns out it was an accident or man mentally ill, so be it. let s see how it plays out. given muslims were involved in this incident in that these were people leaving a mosque according to the muslim counsel