Police were investigating a cross burned into the lawn of an upstate New York mosque Thursday night as a possible hate crime.
Buffalo TV station WVIB reported that the image was spotted outside a mosque on Fuller Road in Waterport, New York. An Orleans County Sheriff’s deputy told the news station that the agency has investigated several other incidents at the mosque as possible hate crimes in the past.
The New York Times reported on disturbances at the mosque, which is the only Islamic house of worship in Orleans County, back in 2010 while a debate raged over the construction of an Islamic center in downtown Manhattan.
Local teenagers were harassing worshippers at the time. Five were ultimately charged with disturbing a religious service, while one of those five, who had fired shots into the air outside the mosque, faced an additional felony weapons charge.
