Cleveland Patrol Officer Ismail Quran could be the poster child for the Defund the Police movement, but it wasn’t all that long ago that he was a rising star: in 2019, the city of Cleveland’s Division of Police named him its “Police Officer of the Year” and gave him its Distinguished Service Medal, hailing him in fulsome terms: “Officer Ismail Quran has truly embodied the community policing philosophy for the Cleveland Division of Police.” Yet Quran was hired, and given this award, despite a social media record of praising Hitler and Hamas. He even joined a Facebook group honoring Osama bin Laden. Did the Cleveland police not know about this or not care? Either way, not a good look.
Quran’s troubles began last Thursday, when Canary Mission, which monitors online anti-Semitism, tweeted a video about Quran with the heading: “SERIOUSLY SCARY! Despite horrifying antisemitic hate speech, Cleveland Police Officer Ismail Quran was rewarded by @CLEpolice with an ‘Officer of the Year’ Award! Do you trust this officer to keep Jews safe? A MUST WATCH VIDEO!”
Canary Mission’s dossier on Quran is loaded with harrowing material. In September 2012, Quran, who has since deleted his Twitter account, tweeted: “I’ll beat the hell out of you like I do Nadiah the Jew lol.” On July 14, 2014, he tweeted: “F**k that Jew.” His tweet included an image of Hitler with this caption: “LET ME SALUTE TO HITLER THE GREAT. He said ‘i would have killed all the jews of the world, but i kept some to show the world why i killed them.’” He also apparently posted this Hitler image on Instagram, as later that day, Quran tweeted: “Actually received a lot of support on that Hitler pic I posted on IG! Lol again it’s for the Zionists, not Jews. There is a difference.” The following day, however, Quran walked back his Hitler support as he accused Israel of genocide, tweeting the same image again and writing: “I don’t salute this man, but what is happening to us, is what happened to the Jews by Hitler.”
In July 2014 and on numerous occasions thereafter, Quran tweeted still more viciously anti-Semitic statements, including: “Lol bum a** Jew tried to intimidate me…don’t try that s**t with me.” “I HOPE THEY TAKE THE JEWS OUT OF PALESTINE.” “F**K THE ZIONIST JEWS!!!!!!!!!!!! B**ch A** MOTHER F**KERS.” “That scumbag Jew.” “F**k the @ Jews #FreePalestine.” “Scumbag Yahoodi [Jew].” “Jews run the world lol Facts! Our owner is Jew! KNICKS!” “ISIS = Israeli Secret Intelligence Unit. Who does Israel get support from? The U.S. #Aliens lol #InsideJob #OpenYourEyes.” “Im like the Jews who think Its okay 4 Hammas 2 fight back the Jews who invaded our country. Those Jews are educated.”
In May 2014, Quran tweeted to Lara Kollab, a medical student who boasted about giving Jews “the wrong meds”: “who bothering ya!!!! Let me at em! Lol if it’s a Jew give me their @ and I’ll do it.” In August 2014, Quran expressed a dim view of Barack Obama: “it’s actually crazy out President really has no power & is Israel’s puppet.”
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All this and much more were publicly available, yet the Cleveland police hired Quran on July 2, 2018. Did they not look at his social media or not care about what they saw there? It’s hard to escape the impression that Cleveland police officials just didn’t care, especially since they named Quran Police Officer of the Year after Canary Mission drew attention to his posts. Canary Mission said in a statement: “We initially released Ismail Quran’s profile in January 2019. His large number of anti-Semitic posts were severe and all posted after Quran had completed his first Police Officer Physical Agility Exam. We were already concerned that the Cleveland Police Department employed an officer with a record of anti-Semitic hate speech. However, we are shocked and dismayed that the Cleveland Police Department honored Quran later that same year.”
However, Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association president Jeff Follmer was dismissive: “These Tweets are from over a decade ago. It doesn’t represent the amazing police officer that he is.” Actually, Quran joined the pro-bin Laden Facebook group five years ago, in 2017. Would Follmer have been so cavalier if Quran in 2017 had joined a Facebook group praising Donald Trump? In that case, Quran might not have been removed from the force, but he almost certainly would never have copped the Officer of the Year award.
But now that Quran’s posts are getting unwelcome attention, Cleveland officials are finally acting. Cleveland police spokesperson Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia stated that “the City of Cleveland, Division of Police was made aware of a matter involving a Cleveland Police Officer and inappropriate social media content. The matter has been referred to the Cleveland Division of Police Internal Affairs Unit and the City of Cleveland’s Ethics Officer for thorough investigation.” While this alleged investigation is going on, Quran has been “assigned to administrative duties.”
Well, great. But what if the ADL had succeeded in its efforts to defame and destroy Canary Mission and it never profiled Quran? Was the city of Cleveland so anxious to feature and honor a Muslim police officer and thereby earn a few wokeness points that it was willing to endanger Jews in the area? The worst part of all this may be that the current investigation of Ismail Quran will almost certainly ignore the most important questions his case raises.
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