“Muslims leave.” Those words were on a note someone left on a woman’s car in Redmond. It happened just outside a Starbucks location. The woman, who did not wish to be identified, said she and her third-grade daughter had just gone into the coffee shop for a few minutes. And when they came out, they found a note on her car window saying, “We don’t Muslims in America.” And another message, strangely in Arabic, told the pair to leave. “I was surprised, because we live in diverse neighborhood. Surprised to see it here,” said the woman. What’s worse, her 9-year-old daughter has a knee injury and is in a wheelchair. The mother feared the author of the note could be following them. “But I can’t believe that someone could hate me because of my religious beliefs,” the woman said. Neither can other residents of the area who are shocked by the incident. “It’s so sad, so sad to have that happen to anyone for any reason,” said resident Karen Mackie. “I don’t know if we can ever educate those people,” said Hiromi Roe, another resident. In fact, the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says it is seeing a growing pattern of hate crimes in the Northwest, with 10 cases investigated since last October. “So we have seen a spike of hate crimes in the Northwest, and this area certainly didn’t use to be this way,” said Arsalan Bukhari, executive director of CAIR Washington. Redmond police say they have zero tolerance for hate crimes, and are investigating this …
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