The words “No Islam” scrawled in black spray paint appeared on the walls of businesses in downtown Brownsville in mid-October, coming at a time when threats and crimes against Muslims in the United States are rising. A local blogger linked the Islamophobic scribblings to Genovevo Izaguirre, the pastor of Mision Divina, whom police have charged with five counts of graffiti.
As first reported on October 25 by El Rrun Rrun, a blog run by former Brownsville Herald journalist Juan Montoya, the Islamophobic graffiti started to appear on October 16, leading business owners who did not want to fan the flames of division in their community to file police reports. But when Brownsville police checked their expensive surveillance camera system, they came up empty-handed and told at least one complainant that the system had been down at the time of the offenses. It was only after El Rrun Rrun published surveillance photos from a local business owner’s camera that police arrested Izaguirre.
