Tuesday December 8, 2015
By Ryan Laughlin
Grand Forks, ND - In the early hours of the morning on Friday a message of hate showed up on the front of Juba, a popular Somali restaurant and coffee house on South Washington Street.
“When I see the graffiti here on the restaurant it was disgusting man,” Mukhtar Afbali said.
Some haven't taken kindly to the Somali hang-out. What appears to an SS, an old Nazi German symbol, is written above the words ‘go home’.
“The main jist of the message said something to the effect of go home. That alone is not to be tolerated,” Lieutenant Derik Zimmel of the Grand Forks Police said.
Some people at Juba today tell us people yelling, "go home," is pretty common.
“Why only target the Somali community? I don't think that's the right thing to do,” Afbali said.
It's not the first time the Somali community in Grand Forks has been targeted by graffiti. Back in March, there was a racial slur spray painted on another business on South Washington.
“Could they be connected? They certainly could be. There are some similarities there. Does that mean that they are? No,” Zimmel said.
Police say the graffiti incident at the restaurant is still under investigation.
Regardless, police say it's important to report incidents right away.
“Once you allow those messages to remain they have a tendency to build on themselves,” Zimmel said.
And that's something the Grand Forks community wouldn't allow.
“We don't have any problems with the neighbors, they support us,” Abdulaziz Moallin, the store owner, said.
The store's neighbors actually came over and cleaned the hateful message off the window.
“Everywhere you go you will see bad person and good people,” Moallin said. “And the majority is good people.”
Moallin said the message to 'go home' doesn't make sense. To him, this is home. His four kids go to school here and he says we're all Americans. To those who think otherwise...
“This is our home... you go home,” Moallin said.