Wednesday February 14, 2018
Minneapolis Police are aware of the poorly written literature, but have taken no action yet. Ilhan Omar, Twitter
Last Tuesday, the day of Minnesota's political party caucuses, anti-Islamic fliers signed by “your neighborhood infidel" appeared throughout Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside Neighborhood, which has a high concentration of Somali-Americans.
The typo-ridden fliers read that a new “MEGA-MN organiation [sic] would like to give a notice that we will not tolerate any inflitartion [sic] from sharia-loving muslims at our prescient [sic] caucus.” The statement continued with equally inflammatory and grammatically deficient lines.
“Clearly, forms of politics has led your country to a shithole state, but this is AMERICA and we will not stand for you muslims bastard. [sic]."
At the top, the flier featured a “TRUMP Make America Great Again” banner.
The flier went public thanks to a tweet from DFL State Rep. Ilhan Omar, who posted a picture of one the day after caucuses were held.
In a subsequent tweet, Omar replied to someone's question to say the fliers had been reported to the police and the FBI.
Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder said police are aware of the incident and monitoring it, but no action had come from the fliers.
“At this point, from what we know, there has been nothing threatening,” he said.
Anti-Islamic sentiment was pronounced throughout the run-up to the state caucuses, including a widely distributed Facebook post claiming that Muslim-Americans were aiming to "infiltrate" Republican caucuses to enact Sharia law in Minnesota. One prominent GOP activist and two Republican legislators -- Reps. Kathy Lohmer, R-Stillwater, and Cindy Pugh, R-Chanhassen -- shared the post, though Pugh later attemptred to distance herself from its contents.
Meanwhile in Coon Rapids, a resolution aiming to “… evermore minimize and eliminate the influence of Islam within Minnesota, including Minnesota schools,” was debated in Republican precincts. The resolution was not adopted, but received coverage in national news.