http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/02/04/police/photo-somali-halloween-costume
St. Paul PD probes photo of officer in hijab
by Curtis Gilbert, Minnesota Public Radio
February 4, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The St. Paul Police Department launched an internal investigation Monday in response to an online photo purporting to show an officer from the department wearing a culturally insensitive costume.

The man in the photo is dressed as a Muslim woman. He wears lipstick, eye shadow and a red hijab or headscarf, with a mobile phone tucked into one side of it.

A caption, that has since been deleted from Twitter, describes it as a Halloween costume and identifies the man as an officer in the St. Paul Police Department. The man in the photo wears a nametag bearing the Target logo. The name on the tag is illegible.

The investigation has not yet determined if the man in the photo works for St. Paul police, Padilla said. But the Target Corporation has confirmed that the man in the photo is an off-duty St. Paul Police Officer. The company would not confirm the officer's name.

Kassim Busuri, who works as the education director at a St. Paul Islamic center, said the image is offensive.

"Our sisters are wearing this. Our aunts, our cousins, all of them are wearing this. It's part of religion. It's part of culture," Busuri said. "And for somebody to make fun of it, it's not good."

The image was first posted online in November, but Busuri and other members of the Somali American community discovered it yesterday Sunday and brought it to the attention of the St. Paul Police Department. This morning, the department launched an investigation. Spokesman Howie Padilla said Chief Tom Smith takes the situation seriously.

"If an image is deemed offensive by somebody, or it certainly does offend somebody, that's certainly not what the St. Paul Police Department is about," Smith said. "And that's what the chief was concerned of quite frankly."

Padilla says the investigation is ongoing. He said dressing in a culturally insensitive costume could be considered conduct unbecoming of an officer.

"What we're investigating isn't the image itself. It's not that the image made it out to social media," Padilla said. "What we're investigating is that the action the image captured. The action is what concerned us."

The image was posted to Twitter and the photo-sharing website Instagram by an account belonging to a man named Michael Hart. According to his Facebook account, Hart is an assets protection specialist at Target.

A Target spokeswoman released a written statement that said, in part, the company is "appalled by this photo" and does "not tolerate or condone discrimination or harassment of any sort."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations applauded the department for its swift response to the photo. Lori Saroya, executive director of the group's Minnesota chapter, says the St. Paul Police Department generally has a good relationship with the city's Somali and Muslim communities, and sees the photo as an isolated incident.

"I think it seems to be one officer who showed really poor judgment," Saroya said. "I really feel like that if he gets the diversity training he needs to really understand what a hijab means to a Muslim woman, how it's not funny when he puts it on, that will really help resolve this issue."

Minnesota Public Radio News is not naming the officer allegedly appearing in the photo, because his identity has not been confirmed.

The Twitter item shown below is provided by Mukhtar Ibrahim, a former intern with MPR News' All Things Considered.

St. Paul Police (@sppdpio) says it's investigating an alleged policeman dressed as a Somali woman. #CultureNotCostume twitter.com/mukhtaryare/st...
— Mukhtar Ibrahim (@mukhtaryare) February 4, 2013

Goethestein posted:

islam is a reactionary force of homophobia and partiarchy and should be expunged

much like your posts, from this forum, after a formal but perfunctory administrative process

babyhueypnewton posted:

getfiscal posted:

mccaine once posted that there was a legitimate security threat involved in letting women cover their faces because then they could rob stores and shit.

lmao