Mosque vandalized by the American Nationalist Brotherhood (ANB), this time it is explicitly connected to the so-called “mosque at Ground Zero.” Job well done Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

Vandalism at Madera Islamic center called hate crime

Vandalism to a Madera Islamic center and signs found on the property are being investigated as a hate crime, the Madera County Sheriff’s Department said today.

A brick was thrown at the building Friday and three signs were found at Masjid Madera, 16634 Road 26, during two other incidences since Aug. 18, said Erica Stuart, Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman. Two of the signs were found on the center’s property Tuesday afternoon.

The signs read “No Temple for the God of terrorism at Ground Zero. ANB,” “Wake up America, the Enemy is here. ANB” and “American Nationalist Brotherhood.”

Earlier reports said the brick went through a window. The sheriff’s department said later today that it struck a wall.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Sheriff’s Department at (559) 675-7770 or Crime Stoppers at (559) 498-STOP.

Mosque protests are springing up all over the United States. It seems as though disparate groups are taking up the rallying cry against Islam and Muslims. Is this anti-Muslim sentiment a blip on our screen or is it a reflection of the coalescing of disparate forces into one larger anti-Muslim movement?

Both sides clash over proposed Temecula mosque

JEFF HORSEMAN

Waving signs such as “Muslims Danced with Joy on 9/11,” about 20 protesters gathered outside a Temecula Islamic Center today to protest Islam, calling it a political movement that oppresses women and seeks to place the world under a brutal system of religious law.

A larger group of counter protesters wore white shirts in solidarity with the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley and carried signs such as “Leave These American Citizens Alone.” Police stood between some counter protesters who crossed Rio Nedo to confront the other side.

While both sides exchanged heated words, the midday protest ended peacefully and police reported no arrests.

The protest announced on a local and a national Tea Party website came in response to the Islamic center’s plan to build a 25,000-square-foot mosque on the other end of town. The mosque is scheduled to go before the Temecula Planning Commission in mid-November.

Some opponents said they see the mosque as part of a larger effort by Muslims to silence non-believers and destroy constitutional rights.

“Islam is a political movement and to have a mosque, you have to have Sharia law,” said Diane Seraphin of Murrieta.

“They’re infiltrating as much as they can,” said Lois Cowan of Hemet. “It’s a desire to take over.”

The executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who was at the protest, said the protesters were ignorant fear-mongers.

“We’re living Islam in America. That’s the greatest counter-argument to Al-Qaeda,” said Salam Al-Marayati. “We are Americans. We’ve made a pledge to this country and that is equal to a pledge to God.”

Joelle Budzynowski of Anza, who wore a white headscarf to support the Muslims, said she was welcomed warmly by Muslims while travelling in Egypt and other predominantly Islamic countries.

“I believe God is love and love is God,” she said. “We should tolerate other people.”

A couple protestors brought their dogs. A notice about the protest accused Muslims of killing dogs and encouraged protesters to bring canines. Muslim-American advocates said Muslims don’t hate dogs.

My guess is that the dogs that these “protestors” will be bringing aren’t going to be fluffy poodles but probably Pit Bulls or Bull Dogs.

Temecula mosque proposal targeted in pending protest

Friday, July 23^rd, 2010.
Issue 29, Volume 14.

Plans to build a permanent mosque near two existing Temecula churches are expected to be the target of an organized protest next week.

The development plan that the Islamic Center of Temecula submitted to city planners about 1½ years ago has drawn muted concerns so far and triggered widespread media coverage that has included stories by the Associated Press and newspapers based in Los Angeles and Riverside.

If an announced July 30 protest materializes, it could mark an escalation of questions and criticism surrounding plans to develop a mosque at the city’s northeast corner. The facility that has served the region’s Muslims for about 12 years would move from an industrial park to Nicolas Road if the development plan comes to fruition.

City officials could be snared in a religion-tinged controversy as the project proceeds through the review process. It has been about seven years since a similar controversy began to unfold in the city that is now home to more than 100,000 residents.

“We are limited to looking at land use issues, not religious or political issues,” Patrick Richardson, the city’s director of planning and redevelopment, said in a Monday afternoon telephone interview. “Everybody has the right to practice their religion as they see fit.”

Richardson did not work for Temecula when a similar controversy surfaced over another proposed house of worship. He said he has since learned about the twists and turns that occurred when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints submitted a proposal nearly a decade ago to build a facility along Pauba Road.

The Mormon controversy contains parallels to the mosque proposal.

The Islamic Center has owned its Temecula site – which totals four acres at Nicolas Road and Calle Medusa – for about 10 years, Richardson said. The Islamic Center has operated in Temecula since 1998, and is based in an industrial park on the city’s west side.

The Islamic Center is proposing to build a 24,950-square-foot mosque. Its building size and acreage would roughly mirror that of two nearby churches – Calvary Baptist Church and Grace Presbyterian Church. The number of parking spaces proposed for the mosque exceeds the city’s requirements, Richardson said.

Because of traffic, noise and related concerns raised by a nearby pastor and others, the city has examined a range of issues as it has reviewed the development plan, he said.

Richardson said the review process has unfolded slowly in part because the Islamic Center, like many churches do when they build new facilities, has relied on some of its members to perform various planning- and development-related tasks.

“We’ve pretty much completed our review,” Richardson said. The site’s zoning designation allows the construction of a church at that location, he said.

A May 27 letter from the city to Hadi Nael, an Islamic Center representative, indicated that the mosque proposal might come before Temecula planning commissioners on July 7. On June 22, Richardson wrote a letter to Nael indicating that the hearing would likely be postponed until Aug. 18.

That’s still possible, Richardson said, although he noted in the interview that the hearing date is “somewhat of a moving target.” At the time of the interview, Richardson said he was unaware Advertisement

North County Cosmeticthat a loose-knit coalition of area residents is planning a demonstration at the Islamic Center’s existing facility along Rio Nedo west of Murrieta Creek.

An e-mail alert sent to area newspapers last week announced that a one-hour “singing – praying – patriotic rally” will begin at 12:30 p.m. July 30 at the Islamic Center’s existing facility. The advisory – sent by a leader of a conservative coalition that has been active with Republican and Tea Party functions – recommended participants “bring your Bibles, flags, signs, dogs and singing voices.”

“We will not be submissive,” the notice proclaimed. “Our voices are going to be heard!” The alert went on to question what its authors described as Islamic beliefs. It suggested that participants sing during the rally because Muslim “women are forbidden to sing.” It suggested that rally participants bring dogs because Muslims “hate dogs.”

The advisory asked rally participants to “please bring a pooper scooper” if they are accompanied by a canine companion. The advisory said residents of an unspecified Tennessee community were able to halt the construction of a mosque in that state.

Telephone messages left Monday and Tuesday at the Islamic Center seeking comment on the planned demonstration were not returned.

The center’s Internet site provides information the mosque plan. The center’s April newsletter said: “In the next two years, our new board will focus on the building project. We need a home! It is the dream of our community.”

It went on to say: “We as a Muslim believe that the Murrieta and Temecula Valley will be a better community by having the Islamic Center, place of worship, place of education and a place for interfaith. More than ten years ago, we were welcomed by many good friends in different churches; and for the last five years we were one of the founders of the Murrieta and Temecula Valley Interfaith Council. Thus we are working together with all our community religious groups to bring more understanding, tolerance and respect among people of faith in our valley. We hope that you can help in building our Center.”

An update in the center’s May newsletter asked members to “…pray that Allah Taala open the hearts and the mind of our city officials to help us to bring this project to life.”

The last major controversy to unfold in Temecula over a proposed house of worship centered on plans to open a Mormon church on a 4.7-acre parcel along Pauba Road near Linfield Christian School.

That controversy surfaced in March 2003 when neighbors of the proposed 24,287-square-foot facility began to cite a range of concerns. The residents complained that they were already besieged by traffic going to and from numerous existing churches and public and private schools in the area.

They also raised concerns that night and weekend activities at a Mormon church would harm their neighborhood’s quality of life.

About 130 people jammed a four-hour city Planning Commission hearing a year later, and about 35 of them alternately spoke for or against the development plan. A series of hotly debated hearings on the proposal ended when the City Council approved the 287-seat church in October 2004.

A Mormon church was subsequently built at that location.

Planned Temecula Valley mosque draws opposition

July 18, 2010|By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times

Muslims throughout Temecula and Murrieta have saved up for years to build a mosque to replace the plain white industrial building, tucked between a pipeline company and packaging warehouse, where they now gather to pray.

But as the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley moves ahead with plans to build on a four-acre plot of vacant land near Temecula’s gentle hills and invading housing developments, plans for the new mosque have stirred hostility in this mostly conservative community in southwest Riverside County.

Along with increased traffic and noise, opponents fear the mosque would clash with Temecula’s rural atmosphere and, they say, possibly turn the community of 105,000 into a haven for Islamic extremists.

The pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, just across a cul-de-sac from the site of the mosque, said the two religions “mix like oil and water” and predicted a “confrontational atmosphere” if the project moves forward.

“The Islamic foothold is not strong here, and we really don’t want to see their influence spread,” said Pastor Bill Rench.

“There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it’s a religion of peace? Many others have said the same thing,” he said.

Leaders of the Islamic center were surprised by the level of criticism, especially from a few religious groups, saying their current makeshift mosque and Islamic community center have been in town for more than a decade and members always have felt welcome.

“Our children go to the same schools their children go to. We shop at the same stores where they shop,” said Mahmoud Harmoush, the imam of the Islamic center and an instructor at Cal State San Bernardino’s World Languages and Literatures Department.

“All of a sudden our neighbors wake up and they’re opposed to us building the Islamic center there, the mosque. I hope it’s a small group,” he said.

The mayor and members of the City Council did not respond to calls about the issue. Temecula’s city attorney advised them not to comment about the proposed mosque because the Planning Commission’s vote on the application for the facility could be appealed to the council.

The Rev. Joe Zarro, co-chairman of the Interfaith Council of Temecula and Murrieta Valley, said criticism of the mosque in the community is from a very small but vocal minority. The council, made up of leaders of a variety of faiths in the area, including Harmoush, unanimously endorsed plans for the mosque, Zarro said.

“A lot of this has been blown out of proportion,” said Zarro, the minister at the United Church of the Valley. “It’s important for people to see our neighbors, and for them to be part of our community.”

The land for the proposed mosque lies west of the Temecula wine country in a pocket of the city that’s become a mish-mash of ranch homes with large grassy spreads and clusters of encroaching red-tile roofs. Along with Calvary Baptist, the mosque will be a short walk from Grace Presbyterian Church.

The design of the 24,943-square-foot mosque and center reflect a Mediterranean design seen in many Temecula neighborhoods, though the building will have traditional domes topped with crescent moons. The facility will be built in two stages, with the first limited to a 4,100-square-foot mosque to serve about 150 Muslim families living in Temecula, Murrieta and surrounding communities, Harmoush said.

The Islamic center has owned the land since 2000, but the small Muslim community has needed time to raise enough money to build. Harmoush said it could be years before the entire mosque and community center are completed.

The proposal is expected to go before the Temecula Planning Commission in August, and city officials are reviewing the expected effect of the mosque on neighborhood traffic and noise levels and any other environmental concerns.

“We look at land issues, that’s it,” said Patrick Robinson, director of the city’s planning and redevelopment agency. “We don’t take into account the denomination of the religion or any of the political issues that surround it.”

A petition opposing the new mosque is being circulated by a group called Concerned Community Citizens, and other politically active volunteers have started organizing a campaign against the facility.

Karen Fesini, who belongs to a Republican women’s group in the Temecula and Murrieta area, said she’s been making calls to warn her friends about the project.

“They say they’re not radicals, but how do we know?”‘ said Fesini, 68.

“Right now we’re at war with the Taliban and the Muslims and our boys are over there fighting and dying for our freedom. What would it be like if they come home and found out we just let them in the front door?”

phil.willon@latimes.com

A Muslim man was assaulted after praying by a man who punched him repeatedly in the face and told him to “go back home.”

San Diego Assault Brings Calls for Hate Crime Charges

By Carol Forsloff

SAN DIEGO – The Council on American-Islamic relations (CAIR) is seeking hate charges against a man who assaulted a Muslim.

The San Diego chapter of CAIR on Saturday asked for state and federal hate crimes laws to be used against a white man in his 50’s.

The Muslim man was praying near Mission Bay park last Wednesday when the incident began. A man watched the Muslim pray and then followed him to a taxi stand where he had parked his cab.

When the victim attempted to enter the taxi, his alleged assailant first shouted, “You idiot, you mother f**ker, go back to where you came from.”

The Muslim cab driver was then grabbed by the shirt and punched repeatedly. The victim had to undergo hospital tests including a CAT scan.

“Because of the racial slurs reportedly used during this attack, we urge state and national law enforcement authorities to consider bringing hate crime charges against the alleged perpetrator,” said CAIR-San Diego Public Relations Director Edgar Hopida.

He said the victim believes he was attacked because of the recent failed Times Square car bomb attack.

Authorities have not revealed the name of the attacker or the victim but charges are anticipated.

The failed Times Square bomb plot allegedly hatched by Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad has been blamed for a rash of racist incidents.

CAIR is the largest Muslim advocacy and civil liberties organization in the United States.

The loons love to cast themselves as the defenders of freedom and the vanguards of enlightenment against the dark forces of Islam. A self-image we have shattered over and over by hurling facts and exposing their ignorance and hateful hypocrisy.

A lot of these right wingers’ invective revolves around castigating the largest Muslim civil rights organization in America, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) because it is a strong and influential voice against bigotry and discrimination against Muslims and that just irks the Islamophobes. They have come up with all sorts of conspiracies revolving around CAIR including one that made Newsweek’s ‘Top Conspiracies of 2009.”

However it seems like they didn’t bargain for an encounter with Sheriff Lee Baca.

L.A. County Sheriff Defends Himself, Muslims after Attack by Indiana Governor

If L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca was feisty last week when he tangled with a Republican congressman in Washington, D.C., he was even more impassioned Tuesday while discussing it.

A week ago, Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) impugned Baca during a House Homeland Security subcommittee meeting, saying the sheriff had allied himself with a Muslim American group that engaged in “radical” speech by going to its fundraisers. Baca not only attacked that description of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but he also told Souder he would be fine with going to more fundraisers for the group.

“If he thinks I’m afraid of what he said, I will go to 10 fundraisers because he said it,” Baca declared Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours before a town hall meeting with the Muslim American community.

Actually, Baca said, he’s been to only two fundraisers for the organization in four years, but that, he added, is not the point. What rankled Baca — aside from what he took as Souder personally challenging the sheriff’s patriotism — was what he saw as the congressman’s inaccurate assessment of the group.

“In other words, he’s an amateur intelligence officer,” Baca said.

Several times a year, the Muslim American Homeland Security Congress — an independent group set up to advise Baca and forge a partnership between the department and Muslim Americans — and the Sheriff’s Department’s Muslim Community Affairs Unit hold forums to discuss issues. The one Tuesday night was scheduled before the dust-up in Washington offered a charged topic for discussion.

When Baca spoke at the Tuesday event, he was given a standing ovation by the 75 or so people at the Omar ibn Al-Khattab Foundation near USC.

Baca called Souder’s comments “scary” and said they were an affront to all Muslim Americans. “When you attack CAIR,” he said, “you attack virtually every Muslim in America.”

Baca’s response to Souder was a statement in defense of democracy, said Maher Hathout, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Southern California. “And they will not vanish,” he said. “They are on the record and they are a landmark on the road of our democracy.”

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, hailed Baca as a hero. “Sheriff Baca is our champion and is our hero in defending us against McCarthyism in this era,” Al-Marayati said.

Although CAIR, a national Muslim civil liberties group, has its critics, Baca said the local offices represent average Muslim Americans “very committed to the safety of the U.S. It is not an organization that supports or promotes terrorism.” He added that the group supported a proposed half-cent sales tax hike for law enforcement. “I think CAIR’s support for public safety is unequivocal,” he said.

Baca said he believes strongly in a connection between public safety and religious understanding. The Sheriff’s Department’s interfaith council, he said, has been working for a decade on projects such as passing out food baskets to the homeless and counseling drug addicts. “We have all faiths represented — Jewish, Muslim, Scientology is even involved.”

The Muslim American Homeland Security Congress was set up in the wake of “this constant uninformed chatter about religion being a factor in terrorism,” he said. “I’m saying — because I’ve read the Koran and been involved with Muslim Americans for years — this is not correct. God has nothing to do with mentally ill people committing terrorist acts. If a mentally ill person is using Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Scientology to say ‘This is part of why I’m doing this,’ I say, ‘Well, guess what, don’t act like you’re God, you don’t have God’s authority.’ ”

Baca is Catholic. “I’m a weak Catholic; I’m not suggesting I’m doing my best at it,” he said. “I respect Catholicism and I respect all faiths.”

Without them, he said, “our crime would be outrageous. We would not be a civilized world.”

carla.hall@latimes.com

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Muslim Mosque Association

Of course Robert Spencer will say Islamophobia doesn’t exist.

Categories: Arrests, California crime, Vandalism

Were these two victims targeted because of their color, for being Muslim or both?

DA Charges Second Hate Crime in Ukiah Truck Stop Altercations

Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott has charged a second man with committing a hate crime after reviewing his interaction in mid-January with clerks at Jensen’s Truck Stop in Ukiah.

Meanwhile, the owner of Jensen’s Truck Stop says he’s rethinking improvements there after his employees were the victims of two hate crimes in a month.

Two clerks of Pakistani descent were the victims of the second hate crime in a month at Jensen’s on Lovers Lane in Ukiah, when Redwood Valley resident Cody M. Cranford, 21, allegedly assaulted them Friday night.

It was obvious Cranford was intoxicated when he entered the truck stop, according to Capt. Kurt Smallcomb of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. He became angry when he asked to use the phone inside and was told to use the pay phone outside instead, Smallcomb said.

Cranford physically attacked clerks Lateef Kamal and Waqar Malik, punching their heads and faces and making racial slurs. Smallcomb said he grabbed one of the men by his sweater and dragged him outside while continuing to hit him. Then Cranford fled and the clerks called 9-1-1.

They identified their alleged attacker after police found Cranford at a nearby bowling alley.

Cranford’s bail was set at $150,000, and he is due to appear in court Wednesday.

The incident comes just more than two weeks after the Jan. 12 incident when Joseph Anthony Frank, 63, of Redwood Valley, made an apparently unprovoked attack on clerk Ahmed Kahn inside the truck.

Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott said Frank walked in and “went into a diatribe of derogatory names towards the store clerk.”

Frank’s anger built until he threatened to kill Kahn, then began to remove his jacket. He lunged across the counter and hit Kahn on the lower left side of his head with a closed fist, according to Lintott.

Frank drove away, and the California Highway Patrol arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, driving with a blood-alcohol level greater than the legal limit of 0.08 percent, and making terrorist threats.

The MCSO investigated the third charge, and the District Attorney’s Office ultimately charged Frank with a felony count of committing a hate crime.

Lintott said what her attorneys look for to decide whether to charge someone with a hate crime is “a biased motive that caused the offender to act.”

State law defines a hate crime as a criminal act committed wholly or partially because of the victim’s disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or association with a person or group marked by one or more of those characteristics.

“Obviously that’s not something we tolerate in Mendocino County,” Lintott said.

Haji Alam, who owns Jensen’s Truck stop and two other gas stations in Ukiah, said, “We get customers like that in and out sometimes, but we usually try to ignore them.”

Alam, a U.S. citizen and Ukiah resident of Pakistani descent, took over the operation of the truck stop last April when he bought the lease from previous tenants. Now he’s thinking of improving the building, but the apparently racially-motivated incidents have made him think twice.

“Now I wonder, should I do it, should I not do it,” Alam said.

He added, “The majority of the customers are nice people, and I like living here.”

Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@pacific.net, or at 468-3523. Editor’s note: This article was edited to correct one incorrect reference to the location of the incidents.

Harrasment

San Francisco man Convicted of Harrasing Muslims

A 47-year-old San Francisco man was convicted Tuesday of four misdemeanor counts related to a September incident in which he harassed members of a local mosque celebrating Ramadan, according to the district attorney’s office.

Gregory Tolbert, also known as Troy Adams, was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of battery and two misdemeanor counts of interference with the exercise of civil rights for a Sept. 20 encounter with congregants of the Al-Sabeel mosque, the district attorney’s office said.

Tolbert reportedly showed up at a breakfast reception in Victoria Manalo Draves Park in the South of Market District, where members of the mosque were celebrating the end of the Ramadan holiday.

Prosecutors said Tolbert began shouting racial and ethnic slurs at the celebrants and was escorted out of the park, but returned later in the afternoon and “caused a disturbance” in an area designated for women and children.

As members again asked him to leave, Tolbert began cursing and swung his backpack at one man, injuring the man’s hand, and scratched another man on his cheek and neck, prosecutors said.

He continued to shout racial and religious slurs until police arrived and arrested him, prosecutors said.

“The law will come down hard on those who violate the civil rights of others,” District Attorney Kamala Harris said in a statement Tuesday.

“There is no place in a civilized society for behavior that steals the free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege guaranteed by the Constitution,” Harris said.Tolbert faces a year in county jail, a $5,000 fine and 400 hours of community service at his sentencing today, according to the district attorney’s office.

Copyright © 2009 by Bay City News, Inc. “… republication, re-transmission or reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.

Edward Wycoff

What would happen if a Muslim man stabbed and bludgeoned his sister and her husband to death because he thought they were too liberal and were raising their children wrong? There would be a sure fire media storm, the anti-Muslim blogosphere would be in a crazed frenzy like a pair of zombies gorging on a fresh human victim. Accusations of “honor killing” would be flying around, and how “Islam” influenced the criminal actions.

Murder Suspect Disapproved of his Victims

EL CERRITO — A man stabbed and bludgeoned his sister and her husband to death in El Cerrito in 2006 because he thought the couple were too liberal, were raising their children wrong and because they hadn’t invited him over for Christmas, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

Edward Wycoff, 40, of the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights coldly planned the slayings, including getting Lasik surgery and using night-vision goggles so he could find his way around the house where Julie Wycoff Rogers, 47, lived with her husband, Paul Rogers, 48, prosecutor Mark Peterson said.

He also purposefully picked the date for the killings – Jan. 31, 2006 – Peterson said in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez. That was 20 years to the day after Wycoff’s grandmother, whom he hated, left his home after breaking her hip, the prosecutor said.

Wycoff regarded his grandmother as “evil” and thought his life improved considerably after she left, Peterson said. Because he believed the couple had also been making his life miserable, he chose that date to break into their home on Rifle Range Road overlooking Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, stab them repeatedly with a knife and bludgeon them with a wheelbarrow handle, Peterson said in his opening statement in Wycoff’s murder trial.

Although Wycoff was also armed with a gun, he didn’t use it because he didn’t want to boost the cause of gun-control supporters, the prosecutor said.

Wycoff, who is serving as his own attorney, told jurors that he still hates the couple “a little.”

“They owe me a life,” he said. “This has ruined my life, and Julie and Paul owe me for that.”

Wycoff agreed with the prosecutor that he resented members of Paul Rogers’ family for their liberal politics, and that he thought the couple were at times “too easy” when they disciplined their children.

He also said that “it wasn’t just Christmas” when he wasn’t invited over. It was also Thanksgiving in 2005, the year his and Julie Rogers’ father died.

“When someone does that, they hate you – they’re out to destroy you,” Wycoff said.

Peterson said Wycoff had planned to adopt the couple’s three children after he committed the killings.

The prosecutor played for the jury the 911 call made by Eric Rogers, then 17, after the killer broke into the home about 4:30 a.m. The boy’s sister, Laurel, then 12, could be heard screaming in the background.

The children tried to help their father, who told them, “I love you all” before dying, the prosecutor said. Eric Rogers brushed his father’s hair, telling him, “I love you, papa.”

Peterson said Julie Rogers’ last words to police were, “Kids OK?”

The children were not harmed. A third child, then 15, was not living at the home at the time.

In an interview from jail after the slayings, Wycoff, who is 6 foot 5 and weighs 300 pounds, said he had tried to disguise himself during the killings by wearing a motorcycle helmet and attaching a ponytail with his late mother’s hair.

In a poem, Wycoff wrote, “My sister, I gutted her like a fish,” Peterson said.

“And in fact, he did,” the prosecutor added, “and he’s proud of it.”

Wycoff was arrested after he turned up at a hospital in Placer County, seeking treatment for a gash on his leg that he probably sustained while breaking into the home, Peterson said.

Wycoff is charged with two counts of murder along with the special circumstance alleging that he committed more than one murder. Prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

Wycoff’s opening statement indicated he would try to justify the killings to the jury, rather than deny he committed them.

At the close of his remarks, Wycoff told the “few fans” in the gallery to contact his advisory attorney, David Briggs, if they wanted autographs.

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/14/BAL81A4SU0.DTL

This article appeared on page D – 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

In a related incident of what if they were Muslim, a human rights group has revealed that a Texas man has been sentenced to be executed after jurors at his trial consulted the Bible to decide his fate. Imagine what would happen if it were the other way around and Muslims had consulted the Quran! This is a theocratic action that contradicts the rules and procedures jurors are supposed to work from considering that an external factor was employed while delivering this man’s punishment.

Amnesty Reveals Bible was Used to Decide Execution

Amnesty International has highlighted a case of a man facing execution in Texas.

The human rights group has revealed a Texas man faces execution after jurors at his trial consulted the Bible when deliberating his fate.

Khristian Oliver, 32, is set to be executed on 5th November.

Jurors used Biblical passages supporting the death penalty to help them decide whether he should live or die. Amnesty considers that the jurors’ use of the Bible during their sentencing deliberations raises serious questions about their impartiality.

According to people in the jury room at the time, several Bibles with passages highlighted were passed around during deliberation.

One juror read aloud from the Bible to a group of fellow jurors, including the passage “And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death”.

A US federal appeals court acknowledged last year that the jurors’ use of the Bible amounted to an external influence prohibited under the US Constitution, but nonetheless upheld the death sentence.

Amnesty International is asking for the death sentence to be commuted.

Khristian Oliver was sentenced to death in 1999 for a murder committed during a burglary.

According to accomplice testimony at the trial, 20-year-old Oliver shot the victim before striking him on the head with a rifle butt.