Waterport/Carlton, NY - After a group of worshippers at a mosque in Waterport said they had been targets of violence--five teens were arrested Tuesday for disrupting a religious service.
One of those people, 17-year-old Mark Vendetti, was arrested on felony charges of illegal possession of a weapon. He is being held on $10,000 bail and is also charged with disrupting a religious service.
Also charged in the incident were Anthony Ogden, Dylan Phillips, Jeff Donahue and Tim Weader, all of Holley.
According to Jacob Zimmerman, member of the World Sufi Foundation, Monday night during evening prayers, cars drove by the mosque with people yelling obscenities and squealing tires — and gunshots were fired.
Zimmerman said when the 11 p.m. services ended, his friend David Bell heard something and ran to the bottom of the hill where a black SUV which had been harassing mosque members over recent days injured Bell in the hip and the mouth.
“It’s been going on for years,” Zimmerman said, “It’s never been taken seriously. It takes the police at least a half hour to get down here”.
Mosque members have just begun observing the holy month of Ramadan which is the ninth month of the Islamic year, observed as sacred with fasting and practiced daily from dawn to sunset.
The Orleans County Sheriff's Office says there will likely be more arrests and charges to come in this case.
