The family of New York and New Jersey bomber, Ahmad Rahami, filed a federal lawsuit against “The City of Elizabeth” and the “Elizabeth Police Department” in April 2011 claiming they were victims of anti-Muslim harassment.
The 38-page complaint alleges that, among other things, after their First American Fried Chicken restaurant opened in 2002, they became the victims of racial discrimination from the Elizabeth Police Department which attempted on multiple occasions to shut their restaurant down early despite an exemption allowing them to operate beyond 10pm. The Rahami family argued that the Police Department’s “selective enforcement of an ordinance…were based solely on animus against plaintiffs’ religion, creed, race and national origin.”
During one confrontation with police, two of the restaurant’s operators, Mohammad K. Rahami, Jr. and Mohammad Q. Rahami, were arrested after they became upset and tried to record their conversation with officers.
As NBC adds, one of the attorneys involved in the case said that the suit was repeatedly delayed while the elder Mohammad Rahami appealed his guilty plead to violating city ordinance governing opening times. Court records show the case was stayed by the judge in 2015.
The complaint also alleged discrimination against a local Elizabeth resident, James Dean Mcdermott, who was accused of referring to the Rahami family using racial slurs, and “repeatedly complained to police that plaintiffs’ business was ‘open’ and commented to plaintiffs that ‘you are Muslims,’ that ‘Muslims make too much trouble in this country.”
McDermott, a freelance television cameraman, told NBC News, “it never happened.” He said his dispute with the Rahamis was over staying open too late and had nothing to do with their religion or background.
The name Ahmad Rahami does not appear in the court papers, and it was not clear if he was involved in the suit under another name. An attorney who represented the family until withdrawing from the case last year did not return calls for comment.
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The full 2011 lawsuit can be viewed below:
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