Being a police officer actually gave me an exposure to the community and
made my connection with the community even better,
because they were... They felt there was a comfort to talk to me
and reach out to me if they needed help, and in fact some of them would
call me for every little thing, and I'd say, "Hey, listen,
you gotta call 911, not to call me," but they did. So
after the sad event and after 9/11,
I
became more attached to the community, because I felt there was a need
to really
connect with the community even more.
A lot of the community members who like myself, immigrants, came here, that
were afraid, "What's gonna happen to us now?" Because what happened
was not easy for all of us.
I remember the day of 9/11. I'm gonna take you a little back
there.
I was...
It was my regular day off, and I
just took my kids to school, I came home,
sat down having my coffee and I see the news. And I immediately,
I called my precinct and I tell them,
"What did happen here?" They said, "Oh, it must be an accident. " I
said, "It can't be an accident, this is something more.
Do you want me to come in?" They said, "No, we'll call you."
I didn't wait for them to call me.
I just responded and I actually responded on my own. Then eventually made
my way to the precinct
and
started from probably 9 o'clock till the next day, 9 o'clock in the
morning, 24 hours, and that was the toughest day in my life,
to be honest with you. My wife was calling me, I wasn't answering, and
I was afraid what's gonna happen to them,
and it was too many emotions, too many things, and didn't know what
to expect.
One thing I was certain that I'm a police officer and I have
to be there for my community. When I say my community,
all of New York City community. So
I stayed until the next day, then I was able to speak to
my wife, I told her, "Listen, I'm fine, everything is good.
I'll see you later." Then
everything took a different turn from that point on.
There was a lot of fear in the community.
People that I knew, called and say, "What's gonna happen, and what we
should do?" So I tell them, "What you should do is just live your life
and do everything like you should be doing. If you see something that
you don't think is right, you make sure you call the police. If
there is anything that you need, you make sure to call the local
precinct." And I gave them my local... Then the phone numbers for the
local precinct. I gave them my phone number
and
we moved on. And we
as officers, Muslim officers, we started looking around who's... Who else
is there that's gonna
get the community to kinda like feel a little more comfort,
because obviously there was a lot of things that was happening and a
lot of the communities were leaving the country, moving to Canada,
moving to that... A lot of people who might not be here documented and
what have you. So there was a lot of fear in the community,
and we figured you know what, we gotta reach out to them and
make sure that the police department is not gonna chase everybody,
we're not chasing anyone. We wanna make sure that you're okay,
and if they see something that is affecting them or affecting anybody in
the city, they should call. And we should be working as partners,
as a community together, because that was... That's just... That's what
we need to do.
So
myself and five others, police officers and a correction officer, came together
and we decided that we wanted to do a forum for the community
to educate them about law enforcement, because for the community if you
are a police officer, you are the immigration officer, you are the one
who's gonna deport them, you are the judge and jury, that's how they
look at it. And we had to really explain to them, "No,
there's a difference. As a police officer, this is our duty. We're here
to serve you, we're here to protect you, we're here to make sure,
we're not asking you about immigration issues, that's not our problem,
it's not... We're not worried about that. We're worried about the community
safety, and we want you to be with us,
and we are with you."
So we did a forum, I remember that...
I can't remember the exact date, but we did a forum in the
school for the community, the Al Noor Islamic School, it's on Fourth Avenue,
where we invited the community, we invited different city agencies and also
as federal agencies, the FBI, ICE, etcetera, because we want them to feel
comfortable. They wanted to come and sit down and ask questions.
So that went well and we decided to start a Muslim officers association.
We call it the American Muslim and Law Enforcement Officers Association,
which include police officers, corrections, and any other law enforcement.
And the idea was to kinda like, "You know what? We need to
make the community feel comfortable, that they have representation within
the law enforcement, 'cause it has a great impact on the community."
Not too long after that, I think
a lot of people joined us,
a lot of young people who were at the fences to join the
police department became police officers.
And it took
a lot for us to kinda come out to the community and tell
them, "Listen, you need to be part of this. You need to...
If you want... You wanna make a change? Stop complaining and be part
of something." And a lot of these young people, they respond to the
call, and when I think about it now, it really took a lot. And the
result of it now, we have over a thousand Muslim officers within the NYPD
alone, not to mention Corrections, FBI
and all of the city agencies... All of the other law enforcement agencies,
and that's... It took dedication from... And not to just to take the
credit, the five officers, but it took a dedication from those five officers,
and then everybody else who followed through to make that happen,
and make the community feel more comfortable.