Sikhs to be `First Preventers` against hate attacks |
The Department of Homeland Security is actively engaging with Sikh Americans to prevent hate and terror-related attacks at gurdwaras, Scott Breor, director of the Protective Security Coordination Division at DHS, said at a Dec. 20 briefing. Sim Singh, national advocacy manager at the Sikh Coalition Breor noted that his division has 119 security advisers across the country who work with malls, hospitals, houses of worship and other large public venues to prevent vulnerability to attacks, and to initiate and implement safety plans. Singh noted the number of recent attacks at houses of worship, including last month`s shooting which killed 26 people at the First Baptist Church in rural Sutherland Springs, Texas; the 2015 shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, at which avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine African Americans; and the Aug. 5, 2012 massacre at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, at which neo-Nazi Wade Michael Page killed six Sikh Americans and injured three others before killing himself. Page had been identified as a white supremacist by U.S. intelligence months before the tragic shootings, the worst ever in Sikh American history.
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