After a California mosque caught fire, Sunday, police announced that they are investigating the possibility of an arson and a hate crime, the Guardian reports. Police said that they found fresh graffiti near the mosque, referring to the Christchurch terror attacks. Firefighters were notified on Sunday night after a «fire blackened an outside wall» of the Islamic Center of Escondido, in San Diego, local media outlets reported. No one was injured in the fire, but morning prayer in the mosque was canceled, the same source added. The words in the graffiti were not revealed by the police, which stated that a «chemical accelerant» was used in the fire. Speaking to the Tribute, a local newspaper, spokesman for the Islamic community in Escondido Yusef Miller said that «everyone is on edge». «When they connected it to New Zealand, it gave us more of a mortal fear that something outlandish might happen», Miller said. For the record, 50 people were killed and 50 others were injured when an Australian terrorist opened fire on Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, a city in New Zealand. The man is a self-declared supremacist who published a racist and Islamophobic manifesto on social media a few days after the attacks.
