Muslims Form Community Patrol. Some Neighbors Say No, Thanks.

The self-funded group sees itself as a neighborhood watch. But there was alarm after its cars were spotted in Brooklyn without warning, or explanation.

Noor Rabah, vice president of Muslim Community Patrol & Services, outside the Police Department's 72nd Precinct, with a car the group intends to use to patrol neighborhoods in Brooklyn. CreditCreditJames Keivom for The New York Times

By Alexandra E. Petri

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Maeen Ali remembers the worry he felt when he first spotted the “Punish a Muslim Day” screed online.

The letter, mailed last spring throughout England, encouraged violence that ranged from pulling off a woman’s head scarf to bombing mosques. Each attack, the letter instructed, would be rewarded with points. The hate campaign prompted the police in New York and other big cities to expand patrols around mosques and Islamic centers on the specified day.

Mr. Ali, who lives in Downtown Brooklyn, said he was consumed by thoughts of his four children’s safety.

“That just boiled inside of me,” said Mr. Ali, 38, who moved to the United States from Yemen in 1990. “That’s when I said to myself that it was really important to come out and protect Muslims in the community.

He added, “I have to stand up.”

As it turns out, he will spend most of his time sitting — in a white Ford Taurus that is detailed to look like a police squad car with red and white emergency lights.

Mr. Ali is among the first 30 members of the all-volunteer Muslim Community Patrol & Services that is preparing to operate in neighborhoods in Brooklyn, with a goal of growing its fleet of two cars to five by the end of the month and eventually expanding citywide. The group recently held a training led by off-duty officers from the Police Department’s 72nd Precinct.

“It’s like a neighborhood watch but on steroids,” said Noor Rabah, the group’s 31-year-old vice president who lives in Sunset Park.

As word of the new patrol has begun to spread, the backlash has been swift, even among some members of the Muslim community who have criticized the lack of information, and even questioned the need for the patrol.

Like the 

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Organizers said they were prepared for skeptics.

But they did not expect the vitriol unleashed when a photo of their new, double-parked patrol cars on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge turned up Dec. 21 on  Facebook, and later on Instagram. The hostility spread after a far-right Canadian website, Rebel Media, posted a snippet on YouTube. The ugly online comments included accusations that the group was a stalking horse for Shariah law, and worse.

“I expected some sort of, ‘Wait, what is that?’ but not, ‘Wait, what the hell is that?’ Mr. Rabah said. “There’s a big difference.”

Some in the Muslim community were equally startled, but for a different reason: The cars’ resemblance to New York City police cruisers stoked anxieties rather than allayed them.

Somia Elrowmeim, the adult education and women’s empowerment manager at the Arab American Association of New York, based in Bay Ridge, said a single misstep from the patrol could reflect poorly on the city’s entire Muslim community. She said more outreach to community leaders was essential before patrols began operating.

Until then, Ms. Elrowmeim, 34, offered this message: “We don’t want you near our community.”

The 68th Precinct, serving Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, fielded a flurry of calls from concerned residents after the social media posts, leading police officials to hold an introductory meeting with Muslim Community Patrol members to discuss parameters: Call 911 if they encounter something suspicious, and take no enforcement action on their own. “We expect them to follow the law in general,” a Police Department spokesman said.

No date has been finalized for the start of patrols, Mr. Rabah said. Before the rollout, members will attend community board meetings to explain the patrol’s mission and to answer questions from residents. On Friday, the group met with members of the influential Arab American Association of New York, whose vice president, Habib Joudeh, had said he was not told about the patrol group until after the backlash prompted by the photo of the car.

“You have to inform people of what’s going on first,” Mr. Joudeh said.

Unlike the Shomrim, which patrols in vehicles and on foot, the Muslim patrol will operate only from patrol cars, Mr. Rabah said.

“We know our place: We are not cops,” he said. “We are simply patrollers for the community,

Community patrols work in concert with th but are not sanctioned or regulated by the Police Department. “Safety is a shared responsibility with the community, so this is an opportunity for the community to help out and work together with the police,” Assistant Chief Conroy said in an interviewMr. Rabah, a funeral organizer for the Janazah Project, said the Muslim Community Patrol had been a long-held dream of his and others. A series of sensational 2016 attacks, including the murder of an imam and his assistant in Queens and an arson attack on a Muslim woman dressed in traditional garb in Manhattan, gave energy to their cause, he said.

New York City is home to an estimated 769,000 Muslims . They make up about 9 percent of the city’s population, but represent 22 percent of all Muslims living in the United States, according to Muslims for American Progress.

In 2017 in the city, there were 14 reported anti-Muslim bias incidents, according to the Police Department’s annual report. Last year, there were 14 bias-crime incidents recorded against Muslims during the first three quarters of the year, the most recent data availabl sf00aining sessiowas led by off-duty police officers from the 72nd Precinct.

Afaf Nasher, executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the actual number of hate crimes is likely much higher, since bias attacks often go unreported. Still, she said she saw the community patrol as more than just a response to discrimination and attacks against Muslims; it was also reflective of a desire to participate and engage with society in deep, meaningful ways.“Muslims in general have had an awakening,” Ms. Nasher said. “We see this movement across the board in which Muslims are thinking more conscientiously about how to give back.”

In 1988, a group of men from a Brooklyn mosque conducted foot patrols in Bedford-Stuyvesant in an effort to rid the community of crime and drugs, specifically crack cocaine. But CAIR officials said they believed the new Muslim patrol is the only group of its kind in the nation.

Ms. Quhshi, a 39-year-old native of Brooklyn who now lives in Queens, said she has not had problems while wearing a hijab, but her teenage daughter has.

“With everything going on, you sort of feel like the whole world is against Muslims,” she said. “So it feels good to know that there is someone there, watching out.”

Mr. Ali, who helped found Mercy Bakery, a nonprofit that runs bakeries and provides free loaves of bread to families in need, stressed that the goal was to serve the entire community, not only Muslims.

“I hope people just give us a chance,” he said.