CHINO HILLS >> A 40-year-old man has been charged with a hate crime after he allegedly pulled a knife and threatened a Muslim woman late last week, San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
Authorities say the incident occurred just before noon Thursday when a Muslim woman was at a car wash in the 14000 block of Pipeline Avenue.
Daniel Senteno, 40, of Chino Hills, allegedly “made statements to her causing her to be fearful,” and then brandished a knife, said Cindy Bachman, a San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman, in an email.
He then followed the victim until she approached the manager at the car wash, who called authorities,
Senteno was taken into custody and booked at the West Valley Detention Center on suspicion of making criminal threats and brandishing a weapon. His bail was set a $75,000. Senteno is still in custody and will be arraigned today in West Valley Superior Court, in Rancho Cucamonga.
Thursday’s attack appears to be the latest targeting the Muslim community since the San Bernardino shooting massacre on Dec. 2, which was carried out by Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who were both Muslim.
On Sunday, mosques in Hawthorne were vandalized, and a mosque in Coachella Valley was firebombed on Friday.
It is not clear if the Muslim woman in Thursday’s incident was wearing a headscarf, but Amjad M. Khan, national director of public affairs for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, USA, acknowledged American Muslim women could face scrutiny from the public.
Malik, one of the San Bernardino shooters, donned a headscarf. Muslim women wear a hijab, commonly referred to as a headscarf, as a sign of modesty and humility, Khan said.
“We don’t want the headscarf to be associated with terrorism; we want her act to be associated with terrorism. The headscarf is the opposite, the headscarf is part of the solution,” he said.
In Islam, more than 50 percent of the women do cover their heads, said Sadiqa Malik, president of the Los Angeles East chapter of the ladies auxiliary for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
“To put them in the same category, that would be unfair,” she said.
Sadiqa Malik said she has not been under any scrutiny since the terror attack, even though since she shares the same last name as one of the shooters.
“This is my security for me, and that’s how I feel,” Sadiqa Malik said about her headscarf. “This is keeping my modesty, keeping my humility and keeping my respect in public.”
Khan said the most powerful message to send to the Islamic State and extremists was that American Muslim women will not take off their head scarves.
He said that his wife has not stopped wearing her headscarf, “even though she gets nervous, but she says ‘this is the time to wear it.’”
“It’s not just an act of religious worship, it is a symbol and a counter message to those who radicalized,” he said.
