As racially motivated assaults in the United States spike post the Trump triumph, a decorated Muslim police officer in New York was threatened and harassed over the weekend for wearing the hijab.
Officer Aml Elsokary was off duty on Saturday morning when she dropped off her 16-year-old son on a street corner and went to park the car.
After parking the car and returning to where she had dropped her son, she saw a white man, who appeared to be in his 30s, harassing and shoving her son.
As she approached, the man screamed, “ISIS b****, I will cut your throat. Go back to your country!”
Unarmed and in casual attire, Elsokary did not reveal her identity as a police officer to the man. Police have been looking for the man and the NYPD Hate Crimes unit is probing the incident as a hate crime.
In 2014, Elsokary was awarded a medal for bravery when she charged into a burning building to save an elderly man and a small child. The veteran officer and her partner rushed into a smoke-filled building when they heard a baby crying on the second floor.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a dinner honouring Elsokary that she was “a hero long before that remarkable day.” She joined the police force after the 9/11 attacks in order to fight anti-Muslim stigma.
In a similar incident last week, three men tried assaulting a Muslim woman on the 23rd Street subway station in New York.
The suspects came to the woman and yelled at her: “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! F****** terrorist, get out of this country, you don’t belong here,” police said. One of the attackers also grabbed the woman’s bag, tearing it apart. Police have been searching for the suspects.
