In the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Trump told CNN, “They don’t report them… For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this.”
Law enforcement officials contradict this statement and have reiterated that Muslim-Americans have alerted authorities to people they fear may be heading towards extremism. FBI director James Comey said, “They do not want people committing violence, either in their community or in the name of their faith, and so some of our most productive relationships are with people who see things and tell us things who happen to be Muslim.”
Michael Downing, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and head of its Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said the city’s Muslim community has been extremely active and alert in reporting “red flags.” “I personally have been called by community members about several things, very significant things,” said Deputy Chef Downing. “What we say to communities is that we don’t want you to profile humans, we want you to profile behavior.”
