Massacre Threat At Manhattan Mosque: No Arrests Made After Warning Of August Atrocity

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — Police still don't know who threatened a Manhattan mosque with an August massacre, according to authorities.

A letter sent to the Masjid Manhattan in June said the atrocity would be carried out at the Lower Manhattan place of worship sometime this month. The message, which was mailed in London, read: "We will be coming to your mosque in August to carry out a massacre. It will be on a scale never seen before."

The NYPD launched an immediate investigation after the letter was received on June 21, but no arrests have yet been made, an NYPD spokesman told Patch on Monday.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to questions about whether the mosque, located at 30 Cliff St., is receiving additional security this month or whether investigators believe the threat to be credible. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Have you been a victim to or have witnessed a bias incident? Tell your story here.

The letter was addressed to a 40-year-old official at the mosque who then reported it to police. Masjid Manhattan did not respond to emails from Patch seeking comment.

The threat comes amid increased anxiety among Muslims and other minority groups in the U.S. during a reported rise in hate incidents. On Saturday, a bomb detonated at a mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota, an incident that the state's governor is calling an "act of terrorism." No one was injured in the early-morning explosion, and authorities are still investigating the early-morning explosion.

The number of anti-Muslim assaults sharply increased in 2015, the latest year for which FBI data is available. A Pew Research Center analysis of the data found that assaults against Muslims in 2015 reached their highest levels since 2001. A later report from the Muslim civil rights organization Council on American-Islamic Relation indicates that the troubling trend continued in 2016; CAIR's study concluded that found that reports of anti-Muslim incidents increased 57 percent in 2016, compared to the previous year.

Initial reports and data indicate that hate crimes and bias incidents against multiple minority communities, including Muslims, have increased in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. The NYPD says that reports of hate crimes, particularly anti-Semitic incidents, have increased notably so far this year.

Masjid Manhattan, which was founded in 1970, originally operated out of a location on Warren Street before moving to its Cliff Street location in 2010. The mosque has long been a pillar of Manhattan's Muslim community.

Lead image via Ciara McCarthy / Patch.