The Ashshura Mosque on Colley Avenue in Norfolk was vandalized between Sunday night and Monday morning with a series of black crosses spray-painted on the side of the building, but a group of volunteers quickly gathered to help clean it up.
A video police have shows a man drawing on a cross sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning, then stopping to smoke a cigarette while looking directly into a security camera, according to longtime member Amin Mohammed.
Norfolk police could not be reached for comment Monday. Around noon, about 10 volunteers came out to help clean up, including members of the mosque and a nearby church.
“We appreciate what they’re doing and standing with us,” Mohammed said. “It’s really sad to see vandalism and things like that for no reason.”
“They came so fast, man,” he continued. “It’s really nice — it makes you feel like we belong in this community.”
Gabe Harrell, one of the volunteers, said he saw a photo of the vandalized building on Reddit and shared it with others who joined.
“I view it as a form of terrorism in the strictest sense, the purpose of which is to inflict fear and intimidation on religious people, and that’s something that anyone in America should be able to do, regardless of their religious beliefs, as long as it doesn’t hurt other people,” Harrell said. “It’s like you’re seeing something from the Deep South circa 1930 — it’s really, really creepy.”
Harrell said the team washed off most of the black paint, but so thoroughly that it left a cross shape on the wall, so they will return Wednesday to repaint the building.
