Only hours after the multiple stabbings of shoppers at a St. Cloud, Minnesota mall on Saturday, the leading newspaper in Minnesota by far, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, published an article that seemed to excuse the Muslim attacker who attempted multiple murders by insinuating he was responding to local anti-Muslim sentiment.
Pat Pheifer of the Star Tribune wrote an article titled, titled “Anti-Muslim Tension Isn’t New in St. Cloud.” Pheifer wrote, “A cloud of anti-Muslim sentiment and tension has hung over St. Cloud for the past seven years, with incidents ranging from bullying Somali and other East African immigrants at St. Cloud Technical High School, to women being screamed at in grocery stores, pig intestines wrapped around the door handles of a halal grocery store, and offensive billboards and license plates.”
Pheifer continued, “The most physically injurious incident came Saturday evening when a man stabbed nine people at the city’s Crossroads Center before the attacker was killed inside the mall by an off-duty police officer. No one but the attacker was killed.” Finally, Pheifer admits, “Authorities said the man reportedly asked at least one victim whether they were Muslim before assaulting them and referred to Allah during the attacks.”
The article never mentioned that the attacker, who shouted references to Allah before the attack, was Muslim.
As PJ Media notes, “Despite the fact that the attacker’s name was already circulating in the media, Dahir Adan’s name never appears.”
The original article was posted at 2:42 p.m. Sunday afternoon, But by 8:21 Sunday night, the article was replaced with a different version; this version decided to even more bluntly assume the tension between Muslims and non-Muslims led to the attempted murders, writing:
St. Cloud has dealt with tensions between Muslims and some non-Muslims for the past seven years, with incidents including bullying of Somali and other East African immigrants at St. Cloud Technical High School, women being screamed at in grocery stores, pig intestines draped on the entry of a halal grocery store, and offensive billboards and license plates. Whether those incidents motivated a 22-year-old Somali man who stabbed nine people at the Crossroads Center on Saturday evening isn’t known and may never be known.