Woman charged with hate crime in vandalism at Davis mosque

[TexasTowelie]

A 30-year-old woman suspected of vandalizing the Islamic Center of Davis in January was arrested and charged with a hate crime Tuesday after officials said she smashed windows at the mosque, wrapped bacon on the door handles, and slashed bike tires outside.

Lauren Kirk-Coehlo of Davis was taken into custody about 11:20 a.m., when Davis police detectives and FBI agents served her with an arrest warrant on charges stemming from the vandalism.

Kirk-Coehlo was charged with felony vandalism with a hate-crime enhancement and vandalism to a building occupied by a religious institution with the purpose of intimidating or deterring persons from freely expressing religious beliefs, prosecutors said.

Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel denounced the crime during a news conference Tuesday. He said officials suspected Kirk-Coehlo following a review of surveillance video near the center and several tips to law enforcement. The investigation led officials to serve a search warrant Feb. 1 on the 2500 block of Corona Drive in Davis, where officials seized evidence linking Kirk-Coehlo to the crime, he said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Woman-charged-with-hate-crime-in-vandalism-at-10932911.php

[Laffy Kat]

1. What sort of warped soul does this?

This has to stop.

[Brother Buzz]

3. One that acknowledged having "mental problems" in texts to her mother

Police: Davis hate crime suspect had ‘aspirations’ to kill

By Lauren Keene From page A1 | February 15, 2017

The Davis woman accused of carrying out the hate-crime vandalism at a local Islamic mosque wrote of having “dreams and aspirations” of killing people, and glorified Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof in social media postings, according to a Davis police declaration seeking to enhance bail in the case from $40,000 to $1 million.

Lauren Kirk-Coehlo also “made derogatory remarks using the terms ‘Jews, Mexicans and (N—–s)’ on a regular basis,” conducted online searches regarding local mosques, bomb vests and Quebec mosque attack suspect Alexandre Bissonnette, and described herself as having “mental problems” in texts to her mother, Detective Dan LaFond wrote in the document, a copy of which is contained in Kirk-Coehlo’s court file.

The information was culled from Kirk-Coehlo’s cell phone, which was seized during a Feb. 1 search of her North Davis home. Some of her alleged comments were contained in private messages in her Twitter account, according to LaFond.

“Based on Kirk-Coehlo’s hate-motivated vandalism along with her glorification of Roof and Bissonnette, who recently killed African Americans and Muslims in their place of worship, along with her own statement of having dreams and aspirations of killing, concern law enforcement,” LaFond wrote. “I believe Kirk-Coehlo is an immediate danger to the public.”

<more>

http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/crime-fire-courts/arrest-made-in-davis-mosque-vandalism/

[Brother Buzz]

2. I totally lost a wager on this one

My profiling model (read gut reaction) indicated this idjet was from outside the city, possible from the uber red foothills regions east of Sacramento, but most likely from the north. Davis is a progressive island in a sea of red, and the mosque has been a high profile "good neighbor" in the city, making it to perfect target.