Police Searching for Suspects Burglarizing Seattle Mosque
On Sunday, Seattle police released a video showing three suspects prowling around a home before forcing their way inside and stealing personal items. However, prior to the home invasion, the same individuals were seen two doors down burglarizing a community mosque, Fox 13 Seattle reported.
"On Sunday, there were three men who trespassed our properties. We ask the community and surrounding centers to be aware and cautious as multiple centers have been targeted like Islamic Center of Federal Way and Seattle Sikh center," Cham Refugees Community posted on social media.
Cham Refugee Center president, Sarafine Appadolo, told Fox 13 that he learned about the men rummaging through the mosque after reviewing security footage.
"We actually own the property two doors down," Appadolo said. "Our tenants alerted us that their property was broken into, and some data-x-items were stolen. They wanted us to check our footage as well."
Once police reviewed the footage, they were able to confirm that the same three men were seen on multiple cameras trespassing in the building prior to invading the nearby home.
"It does put us in a vulnerable state," Appadolo said. "It's disheartening as well because we are just trying to practice our faith and keep to ourselves for the most part."
Appadolo told Fox 13 the men entered the community and religious center between prayer sessions.
"They were not here for prayer," he said. "Normally individuals take off their shoes. They walked right in with their shoes on. They were acting suspicious too. They were also seen looking through our donation boxes. You can tell they were kind of scoping out the room."
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Appadolo added that before the men could take anything of value, they were suddenly scared off.
"Because it’s an Islamic Center we have prayer five times a day," Appadolo said. "They noticed people coming and kind of bailed out."
Seattle Police are investigating both cases and are looking into the possibility that the three men could also be connected to another burglary at another place of worship.
Source: foxnews.com
