Tulsa Man Accused of Hate Crime

Category: ,

He sent an intimidating letter to the Islamic Peace Academy, a charge states.

A Tulsa man is charged with a hate crime for allegedly sending an intimidating letter to the Islamic Peace Academy and posting a video online showing him desecrating a Quran, court records show.


Jesse Quinn Harrison, 33, was charged Tuesday with one count each of transmitting a threatening letter and malicious intimidation or harassment - what Oklahoma statutes call a hate crime.

According to the charges, Harrison is accused of sending a nine-page letter to the Islamic Peace Academy in Tulsa "with the intent to intimidate."

He also made a video that shows him "smearing pork on the Quran and an Islamic religious figure and grilling those items," according to the charge.

The charge states that the video was made to "produce violence directed to others because of their religious beliefs."

A man with the same name and Tulsa address as those listed on the charges posted on Facebook a YouTube video that matches the one described in the charges.

The 5 1/2-minute video, posted to YouTube on Oct. 1, is attributed there to a "Rockwell Porter" - a name the charges list as an alias for Harrison.

The video, which doesn't show its creator's face, intersperses images of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States with the grilling of a Quran, a picture of an Islamic figure and two pork chops. Once the items are grilled, they are stacked on a bun and given to a dog.

The Merle Haggard songs "The Fightin' Side of Me" and "Okie from Muskogee"
play in the background.

At the end of the video, a memorial to Michele Heidenberger, a flight attendant who died when terrorists crashed her plane into the Pentagon, is shown on the screen.

According to the charges, Harrison also uses Heidenberger's name as an alias.

The video and a brief anti-Islamic message were posted by Harrison's account on several additional Facebook pages, including those of the White House and the FBI.

On a Dec. 15 Facebook entry, Harrison threatens to "march on the Tulsa Islamic Mosque" on New Year's Eve.

The charges allege that the crimes occurred between Sept. 17 and Dec. 20.

A warrant for Harrison's arrest also was issued Tuesday.

No one was home Thursday evening at the address listed for Harrison on the charges and on Facebook.

A neighbor said Harrison has not been at the residence since last week.

A spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Tulsa would not comment Thursday.

Muneer Awad, executive director of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he didn't know any details of the case, but he said more hostile rhetoric toward Islam has recently worked its way into the mainstream.

"The rhetoric has not helped," Awad said. "It has forced people to take an extreme stance."

However, he said that although any threat should be taken seriously, cases such as Harrison's are on the fringe.

Many non-Muslims in Oklahoma have good relationships with the Muslim community, he said.

"Whenever instances like this come up, we always have friends from the non-Muslim community to help," Awad said.

tulsaworld.com/articleid=20101231_11_A15_ATulsa470729