MERIDEN — Ted A. Hakey Jr. feared his Muslim neighbors. So much so that in a drunken state on a November night in 2015, he picked up one of his guns and fired several shots at the mosque next to his home.
On Saturday afternoon, Hakey faced his fears — members of Baitul Aman “House of Peace” Mosque — and apologized for the fear and pain he brought to them.
“I was drinking that night more than I probably should have been,” he told more than 50 members and guests who attended a symposium titled “True Islam and the Extremists” at the mosque.
“As a neighbor, I did have fears, but fear is always when you don’t know something. The unknown is what you are always afraid of. I wish I had come knocked on your door, and if I spent five minutes with you, it would have made all the difference in the world. And I didn’t do that.
“Going forward,” he added, “I want to help you bridge that gap and help someone else not make the same mistake I did. … Everything happens for a reason and I believe some good will come out of this.”
The mosque, whose motto is “Love for all, hatred for none,” lived up to its name by forgiving Hakey soon after the bullet holes were discovered.
“We don’t just follow it, we follow it and practice it in all we do,” said Wajid Danish Ahmed, youth director of the Connecticut chapter of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
No one was injured in the incident, and the mosque was unoccupied at the time. Hakey pleaded guilty in federal court in February to intentional destruction of religious property, a federal hate crime. Hakey faces eight to 14 months in prison when sentenced in May.
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(NBC Connecticut TV Report November 2015)