A 79-year-old Troy man is facing hate crime charges after allegedly threatening to shoot and kill four Muslim men outside the Troy Public Library after they identified themselves as Muslim.
Troy police say Peter Hamilton Northup had a loaded pistol when arrested. The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office says Northup has dementia and holds a concealed pistol license. He had 22 registered firearms, 19 of which Troy police confiscated after filing an extreme risk protection order to have them seized.
Northup faces four counts of aggravated hate crimes. He is expected to be arraigned Tuesday morning.
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The four men had set up a table outside the Troy Public Library, where they offered to answer questions about Islam and distributed free English versions of the Quran. Javed Ashraf, one of the men at the table, said most conversations had been respectful — until Saturday afternoon.
Mohamed Khalil, another of the men targeted, described the moment Northup approached.
"He came to us, 'hey guys what are you doing here? Are you muslim?' And I told him 'yes we are Muslim,' (then he said) 'I'm going to kill all of you,'" Khalil recounted.
Khalil said Northup motioned toward his back pocket, where a pistol was visible.
"‘This man he showed me his pistol and said clearly, he has a pistol in his back pocket," Khalil said.
“When someone comes up to you and says he wants to kill you and he has a gun in his pocket, you have to recognize there’s a possibility of something serious happening,” said Ashraf. "We tried to make him calm and make the right decision at the time and not try to escalate the situation."
The men called Troy police, who took Northup into custody.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the incident is part of a growing number of threats made against Muslims nationwide.
"We're just thankful that this incident in Troy didn't end up like Utah or even worse, San Diego," Walid said.
Khalil said the encounter left a lasting impression.
"It was like a bad moment, a bad memory, but thank God no one injured," Khalil said.
Ashraf said the experience underscores a broader problem.
"There's so much negative rhetoric about Islam and Muslims in general," Ashraf said.
He said the group feels a duty to continue their outreach despite the threat.
"We find it our responsibility that we educate people with appropriate information," Ashraf said. "I want people to look past the name Muslim and recognize there is a human being behind it."
"We should not have to live in a constant fear or a constant threat of getting killed just because we are Muslim," Ashraf said.
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