A California district legal professional reposted on social media 9/11 pictures together with feedback blasting the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York Metropolis’s first Muslim mayor. Regardless of the gory pictures and robust denunciation of Mamdani, Dan Dow insists that he has no points with the Muslim neighborhood in San Luis Obispo County, the place he’s the highest prosecutor.
He has “sturdy ties” with the neighborhood, Dow mentioned in an emailed assertion Thursday to The Instances.
However his posts have drawn backlash, and a Muslim advocacy group is demanding an apology and an investigation.
On Wednesday, Dow retweeted a put up on X from a well-liked right-wing account that appeared to indicate a snapshot moments after flames jutted from the South Tower, the second of the dual towers struck by a aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001.
A second visible tweet, extra graphic than the primary, displayed footage from two angles of a aircraft barreling into one of many towers. That was posted by the chief of an activist group, described as a hate group by some, that claims to “fight the threats from Islamic supremacists, radical leftists and their allies.”
Every was posted within the aftermath of the New York Metropolis mayoral election gained by 34-year-old democratic socialist Mamdani.
The posts had been retweeted and subtweeted days later and three,000 miles away by Dow, drawing rebuke from some locals, in a narrative first damaged by the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
Dow responded to a Instances e mail for remark saying his problem was not with the county’s Muslim inhabitants, which numbers round 500, in accordance with the Assn. of Faith Knowledge Archives.
“I shared the posts as a result of, in my view, Mamdani goes to destroy New York being a self-proclaimed socialist,” Dow responded. “I help the Muslim neighborhood and have sturdy ties to our Muslim neighborhood in San Luis Obispo.”
The primary put up Dow retweeted got here from the account @EndWokeness, which vows to its almost 4 million followers that it’s “combating, exposing, and mocking wokeness.”
The second put up got here from Amy Mekelburg, founding father of Rise, Align, Ignite and Reclaim (RAIR) Basis, which is listed as a hate group by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The council’s Los Angeles workplace demanded Thursday night that Dow apologize and “retract his latest anti-Muslim social media posts.” CAIR-LA can also be asking for an impartial investigation into Dow’s conduct and “his health to proceed to function DA.”
The group is incensed at his retweeting of Mekelburg, whom they describe as “a identified anti-Muslim extremist.”
Mekelburg wrote a large message on the video put up, saying she’d “given my total self” to warn the world “about the specter of Islam after 9/11.”
“And now … to see New York — my metropolis — stand on this second, the place somebody like Zohran Mamdani might even be elected,” she wrote. “My God, New York, what have you ever executed?”
CAIR-LA mentioned that Mekelburg “falsely equated the election of Mamdani with 9/11, reinforcing the dangerous stereotype that Muslims are inherently tied to terrorism merely due to their religion.”
Dow subtweeted that particular put up with a message that started by highlighting his 32 years of service within the U.S. Military and his 4 excursions abroad.
“I keep in mind prefer it was yesterday our nation being attacked by Islamic extremists on 9/11/2001,” he wrote. “I really like this nation and I don’t in any method share the identical views because the 33-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani.”
He added within the tweet: “I’m very unhappy to see the Massive Apple torn aside by electing an un-American socialist who desires to trample on the values and freedoms that thousands and thousands of Individuals have fought and died for.”
“Dow’s resolution to repost content material that weaponizes bigotry and baselessly ties an elected Muslim official to terrorism is appalling and displays the deeply rooted dehumanization and fearmongering on this nation that American Muslims have needed to endure for many years,” CAIR-LA Government Director Hussam Ayloush mentioned in a press release.
Dow’s posts additionally struck a nerve with one in every of his Muslim allies in San Luis Obispo, Dr. Rushdi Cader, who referred to the district legal professional as “a private good friend” to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
Cader informed the Tribune the posts had been “extremely incendiary and places Muslims in danger for hurt, particularly hijab-wearing Muslim girls like my spouse Nisha, whom Dan has himself described as ‘a sort and mild woman’ who he ‘prayed can be blessed with peace.’”
Cader added he thought Dow’s “ugly put up” was borne “out of disagreement with Mamdani’s politics” reasonably than any direct assault on Islam.”
Dow’s tweets drew different rebukes.
San Luis Obispo County Second District Supervisor Bruce Gibson known as Dow a “Christian nationalist.”
He “occupies a strong public workplace that requires decency and self-discipline,” Gibson mentioned of Dow. “This put up is yet one more instance that he has neither.”
San Luis Obispo Mayor Erica Stewart emailed The Instances to say that town was welcoming to all neighborhood members.
“Dan Dow, because the county’s District Legal professional, by definition, ought to be goal and honest,” she wrote. “For somebody in his place to specific racism is unacceptable.”
Dow had his defenders too.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer serves with Dow on the California District Attorneys Assn. Spitzer is the group’s secretary-treasurer whereas Dow is the president.
Spitzer discovered no fault with Dow’s social media posts.
“Elected officers have a platform to share their views and be judged by their constituents,” he wrote in an e mail. “It’s heartbreaking to see somebody who has expressed such anti-public security and anti-Semitic sentiments elected as mayor of New York, and we because the elected protectors of public security have a proper to specific that.”
