‘It keeps happening’: Hamilton imam speaks out after targeted attack against wife and daughter
In the 33 years Imam Kamal Gurgi has lived in Canada, he never expected the phone call he got Monday night.
It was from his wife.
She rang from a parking lot close to the Shoppers Drug Mart on Golf Links Road - the one near their suburban Ancaster home, the one they often walk to as a family, peaceful and at ease.
But her voice was now fraught with fear, palpable even from the front steps of the Hamilton Downtown Mosque where Gurgi took the call after delivering an evening prayer.
Somebody just tried to kill us," she told him.
What do you mean? Where?"
About an hour earlier, she explained, she and their adult daughter were walking through the Shoppers parking lot when a man driving a car nearly hit them as he pulled out of a spot.
He began to yell obscenities at them, racial slurs targeting Muslims.
You're not Jews. You're not Christians. You are Muslims," the man allegedly told them, according to Gurgi. You don't belong here."
The women - both wearing hijabs - ignored the hateful remarks and kept walking east on Golf Links before hitting Mohawk Road.
Then Gurgi's daughter, 26, turned around.
Mom, he's following us!" she yelled.
The pair ran and split in the haste of an unchartered experience: Gurgi's daughter taking refuge behind some bushes; his wife running with no immediate direction - just anywhere but there.
The driver followed and found the latter in the parking lot of a nearby retirement home. She was screaming for help, Gurgi said. People were watching.
I found you," the man allegedly told her. I'm going to kill you."
An onlooker told his wife to get out of the car and call police. The onlooker bravely followed" the man home, Gurgi said, recording his licence plate number.
As Gurgi heard his frantic wife recount the incident - him still standing outside the mosque, her now standing beside a couple of police officers - his mind went to a dark place.
He thought back to a month ago when a Muslim family of five were run down while crossing the intersection of a London, Ont., suburb. Four of them - a grandmother, a mother, a father, a teenage daughter - were killed. One, a nine-year-old son, survived. Police believe the family was targeted because of their Islamic faith.
Right away, it came to mind," Gurgi said.
Gurgi is speaking out after his wife and daughter were targeted in what Hamilton police have classified as a hate crime, calling for action from the top down to stifle anti-Islamic hate.
Vince Licata, 40, of Cambridge has since been charged with three counts of uttering threat to cause death, two counts of assault with a weapon, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and failure to comply with probation.
In a candid interview Thursday night, Gurgi told The Spectator his family has been left traumatized by the incident. His wife and daughter - who stayed at the Hamilton Mountain police station until 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday giving victim impact statements - have been plagued with constant headaches and a debilitating fear to go outside.
They're not feeling well, at all," said Gurgi of his wife and daughter, who The Spectator is not naming because they are fearful for their safety. We're frightened in our own home. My daughter finds it difficult to go to work. And for what? Because they have a different faith? It's something that's really outrageous.
We've been living here for 33 years. We are residents of Hamilton. We are Canadians, human beings."
Hate-related attacks against Muslims aren't just becoming more frequent - but pointedly more serious and sinister in nature, a pattern Gurgi said is too difficult to ignore.
From 2015 to 2019, the National Council of Canadian Muslims tracked more than 300 incidents, including more than 30 acts of physical violence. Two days after the incident in Ancaster, a mosque in Cambridge was vandalized in what Waterloo police consider an act of hate."
It keeps happening. It's kept happening since 2017, that these incidents increase in intensity and in number," said Gurgi, referencing the January 2017 mosque attack in Quebec City that left six dead and five wounded.
And people are dying. It's not like something that is trivial. It's something that exposes the lives of people - human people that are being killed."
The attack Monday night was widely condemned across the country, from local leaders to politicians in Ottawa.
But Gurgi said more needs to be done.
He is tired of the almost cyclical condemnations that follow every hate-motivated act - as if they're normal, something we're supposed to do - and the actions that don't.
We are fed up with the lip service the politicians give us: We condemn this and that. This has no place in Canada.' But all we get is just talk, no walk," he said. And that's why these incidents keep repeating because nobody is trying to stop them."
Gurgi further took issue with what he called an unacceptable" police response time to the attack. He said police came to the scene more than a half-hour after a witness first called 911.
You call for help, your life is in danger, and no one comes to the rescue until about 45 minutes later. You would have been killed by that time if no one was around," said Gurgi. It's unacceptable."
He added: We need to have a more appropriate response. We need to do better. And this is not destructive criticism; this is constructive criticism."
Hamilton police received the first call concerning the incident at 9:38 p.m. A patrol officer was on scene by 10:02 p.m. Fifteen minutes later, three other officers and a sergeant joined them.
In an interview Friday, police Chief Frank Bergen acknowledged the Gurgi family's concerns and said we want to do right" by any victims of hate-related crimes.
I want to ensure the community that, wherever possible, we will do better. We will never, never discount the impact of a crime on anybody," Bergen told The Spectator. The imam spoke about constructive criticism, and that's what it's all about. It's about understanding it and working together to ensure we do better."
Bergen also commended the witnesses to the attack, who he called key" to the swift arrest of Licata.
Gurgi said the suspect's quick arrest has provided some comfort for his family.
But the imam still worries about the next attack, the next family left to suffer the atrocities of hate, whoever they may be and wherever they may live.
He often comes back to a passage in the Qur'an that says people were put on earth to recognize one another and get to know one another.
Not to hate one another, not to kill one another, not have grudges against one another," he said.
We are the children of Adam and Eve in the end, brothers and sisters in humanity. No matter what faith you believe in or what colour you are or what race you are. We are all human beings."
Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com