Anti-Muslim graffiti in St. Paul prompts call for FBI probe

The Minnesota Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has asked the FBI to investigate graffiti the group says is an apparent hate crime.

Two weeks ago, CAIR Minnesota received a report of an expletive and the word Islam painted in motor oil on a neighborhood street in St. Paul.

The words were large and on public property near a driveway, said Lori Saroya, executive director of CAIR Minnesota.

"It's facing outward," she said. "That tells us it's not necessarily targeting that house but it's sending a message to the neighborhood."

Saroya said she knows of three Muslim families living nearby. The city of St. Paul painted over the letters a few days after the graffiti was first spotted, she added.