Man Charged Federally for Hate Crime in Vandalism of Rutgers Islamic Center
The Department of Justice said Monday that a New Jersey man was charged with a federal hate crime for breaking into the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University during the Eid-al-Fitr festival and inflicting roughly $40,000 in damages.
The Justice Department said that Jacob Beacher, an unaffiliated Rutgers student, was taken into custody on Monday and charged with one count of purposeful or attempted interference of religious exercise and one count of lying to federal authorities.
At about 4:30 a.m. on April 10th, the Rutgers University Police Department was called to the scene. Chaplain Kaiser Aslam said officers discovered damaged artwork and plaques with Quranic passages, shattered windows and a television, and a Palestinian flag ripped from the front lobby pole. The Justice Department said Beacher, 24, had taken a center-owned donation basket and a Palestinian flag.
The structure was damaged on the opening day of Eid al-Fitr, the three-day celebration that comes after Ramadan, the month of fasting.
“Being our home on campus, the community is shaken,” Aslam remarked following the event. “For a lot of our students, it’s a safe place.”
The most recent development in escalating animosity against Muslims in the US is the hate crime accusation that was made public on Monday. Ever since Israel started its war in Gaza six months ago, there has been an unprecedented rise in Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian acts, according to civil rights activists.
The California State University Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism reports that overall, hate crimes reported in 25 American cities rose by an average of 17% from 2022 in the previous year.
FBI: Break-in Caught on Camera
According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit submitted in federal court, Beacher was seen on surveillance tape on April 10 at approximately 2:41 a.m. heading toward the Center for Islamic Life’s back door. According to the affidavit, he next allegedly broke a glass pane on the door, forced through a piece of Plexiglass, and manually opened the door from inside by reaching through the broken glass to unlatch a deadbolt lock.
Beacher exited the structure at around 3:05 a.m. via the back entrance. The affidavit states that less than a minute later, video surveillance captured him pacing the area by the Rutgers Student Center, which is roughly 75 to 100 feet from the Center for Islamic Life. A little while later, he mounted a bicycle and headed toward Buccleuch Park.
According to an analysis of all the local video footage, Beacher was the sole individual observed near the Center for Islamic Life between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m., the affidavit states.
A sliver of Beacher’s cell-site data revealed that his cellphone had been on the east side of Buccleuch Park shortly after the break-in, and on April 14 two people reported to authorities that they had found a donation box belonging to the Center for Islamic Life on the east side of Buccleuch Park. The FBI questioned Beacher in North Plainfield, New Jersey, on April 12.
According to the affidavit, Beacher denied breaking into the center but acknowledged that he was the one seen on the neighborhood video.
A Civil Rights Organization Demands Stronger Safeguards
Administrators at Rutgers were encouraged by the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to take quick action to safeguard students who identify as Muslim, Palestinian, or allied.
Following the arrest, the group claimed, “Muslim, Palestinian, and allied students throughout college campuses are seeing an upswing in discriminatory attacks, especially as they struggle for Palestinian liberation. An instance of such prejudiced violence is the vandalism of the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University, which had a Palestinian flag on display.
With regular demonstrations throughout campus, charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and a movement for the university to withdraw from military and security corporations doing business with Israel, tensions over the conflict have become a flashpoint at Rutgers University.
“The amazing and generous outpouring from the Rutgers community and the community at large humbles us,” the Rutgers Center for Islamic Life stated in a statement after the arrest. “The outright donations, in-kind donations to replace damaged and stolen goods, flowers, balloons, calls, and emails have been overwhelmingly encouraging. Thank you very much.
The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, the Rutgers University Police Department, and the state Attorney General’s Office supported the FBI in their investigation. According to university police, who asked that anybody with information contact its Detective Bureau, the investigation is still underway and more charges are pending.
Anti-Muslim Hate Incidents Across the U.S.
CAIR reports that anti-Muslim hate crimes have topped all-time highs in the United States recently. The civil rights organization reported that in 2023 it got over 8,000 complaints, the most in its thirty-year history, with almost half of those complaints coming in the last three months of the year.
“Prime force behind this wave of heightened Islamophobia was the escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine in October 2023,” according to CAIR’s 2023 report.
In 2023, CAIR recorded 8,061 complaints, exceeding the prior high of just over 6,700 in 2021. Cases of immigration and asylum, discrimination at work, in the classroom, hate crimes, and incidents are among the complaints.
Thousands of anti-mosque incidents have been documented by the American Civil Liberties Union nationwide since 2005. When Muslims gather for the community prayer known as Tarawih on Ramadan evenings, mosques typically get busier. Eid also brings them together for a special prayer and celebration.
The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office reports that earlier this month, a man was charged with criminal vandalism as a hate crime for reportedly breaking multiple windows of the Masjid Al-Tawheed mosque. Police in Chicago are looking into a suspected hate crime after a man yelled anti-Muslim remarks and followed many women into the Downtown Islamic Center, according to NBC Chicago.