Columbus Somali leader on attack: 'The timing is not good'
"The timing is not good," Hassan, 54, said in reference to the country's increasingly intensified anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim fears. "We are black. We are Muslim. We are Somali. We are all the negative stigmas."
Hassan sat in the lobby of the Somali Community Association offices upstairs and around the back of a 1970s-era strip mall on Cleveland Avenue. He said the office is the first stop for people arriving from the east African nation who are seeking an apartment, a job lead or a decent school for the children.
In the past few years, the large Somali refugee community in central Ohio has come under increased scrutiny over concerns that ISIS sympathizers could be hiding there.
Hassan knows members of the suspect's family. He spoke with them at 3 p.m. Monday.
"They said the U.S. officials came this morning and got his mother and siblings," Hassan said.
"We do not have a spike in crime," Hassan said. "But we are human beings. We might have a couple of bad actors, like any community does. Crime is everywhere. Criminals are everywhere. Punish the individual, not the entire community. We do not want to get a bad label because of an individual."