Aurora Hindu temple shooting plot: Mayor, faith leaders respond

Ready to begin. Everybody, thank you very much for joining us today. My name is Pushkar, and I'll spell my full name, Pushkar, P-U-S-H-K-A-R. My last name is Sharma, S-H-A-R-M-A. I'm the co-founder and executive director of Sacred Acts. It's a South Asian American organization, multi-faith, multi-generational, organizing in the South Asian American community here in Illinois and across the Midwest. I should say at the outset of this that I am a practicing Hindu Buddhist myself, and it is under terrifying circumstances that we join you all here today. We are here to discuss and condemn an attempted mass shooting at Aurora at a Hindu temple there. We're honored to be joined by a multi-faith group of local and national partners here today. But we want to emphasize that this development comes as research documents how anti-South Asian American hate is surging in America as we speak. I want to name our partners before we jump in and to thank our friends at CARE, Council on American Islamic Relations Chicago, to host us in their home today. I want to appreciate the work of Hindus for Human Rights, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Sikh Coalition, SALDEF, which is the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago, and all our partners here today for joining us at this multi-faith press conference. The big picture is that we live in unprecedented times where we have a second lady in the United States of America named Usha Vance. Many of you may know that she is a Hindu-American. And yet, we are experiencing the federal administration that targets immigrant communities, minority faith communities across our country and threatens us all. Recent research from Stop AAPI Hate documents massive surges of anti-South Asian American hate. And we've seen this as a history. Thank you very much, State Senator Ram Vilavalam, joining us here. I want to say that we in the Midwest know this type of hate. Examples for, in recent history, a mass shooting at a Sikh temple, a Sikh gurdwara, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, as well as a mass shooting in Indiana, in Indianapolis, at a FedEx facility, where there was a large number of Sikh American and Punjabi workers there. So we know in South Asian Americans in the Midwest that we are our target from this type of hate, and we are experiencing a profound period of attack from a federal administration in Washington that would peddle hate against our communities. We are fortunate here to be standing together, united as a multi-faith coalition to demand federal action on addressing hate in our country. I want to pass it now to my colleague and friend, Executive Director CARE Chicago. We'll actually, sorry, we'll just take one moment with State Senator Ram Vilavalam joining us here. We'd like to invite him to the podium first. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much, Pushkar, and to the organization of SACRED for helping organize this press conference. I want to thank CARE Chicago for hosting us this afternoon as well. I want to start off by first and foremost thanking the law enforcement, the community leaders, the people that have stepped up in this moment to avert what would inevitably and most definitely been a tragedy, you know, as we've seen the news continue to come forward about what was transpiring. I also want to state that now more than ever, we need to come together you know as people from different faiths as people from different ethnic backgrounds we know that first and foremost unfortunately hate does not discriminate we've seen the rise of hate and discrimination from anti-semitism to islamophobia and much more and so by standing together and rejecting hate and discrimination together i believe we'll make sure we get to the the ultimate goal of eliminating this hate that we're experiencing. I will also say that as the first Indian American elected to the Illinois General Assembly and someone of Hindu faith that is in the Illinois General Assembly, I stand with our community members across the state, especially those in Aurora that have been targeted. It can be very lonely when you're experiencing what just occurred. You can be someone getting in your car, going to a temple, and all of a sudden you hear the news, and you can lose the very faith that you were going to practice. And so it's incredibly important for us to stand with them, to see them, to acknowledge them, and to let them know that they're not alone, especially this past week. I want to just also add that it is unfortunate that we're in this situation, but it also is our responsibility to take action. And I know that at the state level we have worked to pass legislation regarding hate crimes, pass budgets that fund programs like the nonprofit security grant program that provides security grants for places of worship and nonprofits. However, this is a reminder that we need to do more. And I think that the people that are standing here today, I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart because they've been in this struggle. They've been standing in solidarity against hate for such a long time. And they've been on the front lines of the policy changes we've seen occur and they are also the ones along with many others across the state they're going to make sure that we continue to make more policy changes to ensure that these types of incidents never happen and so with that thank you again for inviting me thank you again for putting this together and my name is spelled uh ram r-a-m as in mary first name last name Vili Volum, V as in Victor, I-L-L-I, V as in Victor, A-L-A-M as in Mary. Thank you. Thank you so much, State Senator Ram Villivalam. I want to now call to the microphone Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director, Co-Founder of CARE Chicago. Good afternoon, everyone. As a Muslim American, I stand here today squarely in solidarity with my Hindu American brothers and sisters, as well as Jewish Americans, African Americans, Sikh Americans, and others like Muslim Americans who have been repeatedly victims of, let's call it what it is, white supremacist terrorism. Now, let's be frank. White supremacy has been a force, a violent force in the world and in this country since its very founding. The transatlantic slave trade and the genocide against native americans were two episodes in that dark history but truth be told many if not most white americans in this country have moved beyond those types of outlooks where they look down and violently so against those who don't look like them but now we're seeing a resurgence of that kind of ideology led by political leaders in this country that climbed all the way to the apex of our political establishment the president of the united states who has repeatedly maligned my faith and called other people in this country who are not white who are not Christian as coming from S-hole countries and other very demeaning language terms that he uses. And it's not just him. It's people who are locally elected here in Illinois and across the country from New York to Texas to California. And we just are sick and tired of it. Because we're bleeding and we're dying and we're being threatened. And these are good Americans, innocent individuals, who are worshiping in their safe homes of worship and targeted simply because of the color of their skin or the way that they worship God, the one God. I want to say that we stand in solidarity as the other vision of America, whether we're African American, white American, Latino, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh. we're all united and that's the promise of this country that's the only way we can move forward and we must call those who believe that only white Christians have rights in this country a right to vote a right to be elected a right to safety a right to worship that these are the enemies of what this country is all about and that is the enemy within that we must all fight together and call it out for what it is this young man was very clear in his own motives and intentions He has been looking into Nazi ideology for two years. And he's not the only one. You've heard about several incidents. There are many more that we don't have enough time to discuss, and they keep coming. Enough is enough. We call on our political leaders to step up and show courage and clarity and be true patriots. Patriotism is not beating your chest to your color or religion, but understanding that all Americans are entitled to safety and prosperity under this one flag. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ahmed. I want to now call to the podium Chicago Board of Education member in District 6A, Anusha Thotakura. Thank you. My name is Anusha Thotakura, A-N-U-S-H-A-T-H-O-T-A-K-U-R-A. I'm a Chicago Board of Education member representing District 6A, which is roughly the near north and northwest sides. But I'm originally from Palatine. That is where I was born and raised, which is where the individual who attempted this mass shooting and this act of white supremacist terrorism is from. The Hindu temple in Aurora is also my family's temple, where I grew up attending. That is where my family goes to worship, as do so many families. And so this is incredibly personal for me, but it's not just personal for me. So many people are afraid to worship in their houses of worship, whether it's a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a gurudwara, a Hindu temple. Those are places where people should be able to find peace and refuge. But because of the spread of white supremacist ideology and hate, people do not feel safe in their houses of worship. because of the crisis of gun violence in our country. People do not feel safe sending their children to school. People do not feel safe even in their own homes. This attempted act of white supremacist terrorism is an intersection of three different crises we are experiencing in our country. One, the crisis of white supremacist hate, which is amplified by right-wing leaders in this country and through social media platforms that are unregulated, allowing individuals to see content that was never able to be seen at this rate before. Spreading hate, unfiltered, and unchecked. The second crisis is lack of access to mental health supports. By multiple accounts, the attempted perpetrator of this act had very serious mental health needs that went completely unmet. But that would not be a concern if it wasn't also for the third crisis in our country, which is gun violence and lack of regulation on weaponry and ammunition. the amount of weaponry and ammunition found in the individual's home i do not believe that there is any reason why any individual should need an access to that kind of weaponry and ammunition and we should do a lot more in our country to make sure that no one has access to to that kind of weaponry ammunition especially people with the kind of mental health needs that this individual clearly has i want to close by thanking the individual who was made aware of what happened the attempt that happened on Sunday, and took that very brave and courageous step to inform law enforcement. And that should be a reminder to all of us that we all have a part to play in keeping our community safe and dismantling white supremacy and domestic terrorism. We all have a role to play. And so to that individual who did not have to do what they they did, and took that brave step to come forward, thank you. And I encourage everyone to think about what they can do to keep themselves safe, their neighbors safe, from all forms of hate, whether it is anti-Hindu hate, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant hate. We all are better when we come together to keep our communities safe. Thank you. Thank you so much, Board Member Todorukura, for that powerful testimony. I'd like to welcome now. honored to to welcome the mayor of Aurora, John Leish. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. My name is John Lash. I'm the mayor of Aurora spelled J-O-H-N-L-A-E-S-C-H. I want to begin by just expressing my deepest appreciation to the Aurora Police Department, the Palatine Police Department and Mount Prospect Police, who worked collaboratively to bring this person to justice. A young man who allegedly described Indians, Jews, and African Americans as subhuman and overtly threatened members of our community. We're thankful that he was apprehended, that he did not act, and we appreciate all those who worked together to make sure that did not happen. I want to thank the Council on American Islamic Relations, CARE, Ahmed, thank you for whenever racial injustice, racism rears its ugly head, you guys seem to show up to bring our community together to elevate the voices of love, the voices of justice, the voices of unity, and the voices of peace. I moved to Aurora in 2008, and I chose this community because it was a diverse community. Having grown up in West Africa, living in Manama, Bahrain, and experiencing cultures throughout the world, I understand the power of unity and sharing of different cultural backgrounds. As a city, we've stood together in the past. When ICE raided our community last summer, people of all colors, backgrounds, stood up to come together to fight back and to stand in unity to oppose the oppressive takeover of our streets. And I believe that we'll do it again to stand up and defend the Indian American community, the African American community, the Asian American community, and all those who feel under assault by the current administration in Washington. I've learned that we cannot control the thoughts and actions of others who, like this young man, seem to be infected with the hate that is being spewed from our national leader's mouth. But we can control our own actions. We cannot be afraid as the voices of fascism grow louder, escalating a race war to distract us from the class war that they are simultaneously waging. And I know that many in the Indian American community are celebrating the festival of Navaratri, a nine-day festival that began on October 11th and will continue through the 19th. I want Aurora residents and those visiting our community to celebrate this holiday to do so without fear. There's a deep level of irony that this holiday, like many Hindu festivals, celebrates the victory of good over evil, the victory of light over darkness. And America is without question living through a dark era of our history. We begin to conquer the darkness by universally condemning this threat of violence and working to build unity and acceptance in our community. There's tremendous power in community, tremendous power in love, tremendous power in speaking out and being unified. That's what Aurora is about. We're one city that's going to stand together to speak up when there's an injustice anywhere. And I believe that the Aurora residents can feel safe celebrating through this holiday season and that you're going to see more people expressing support and love for those in the Indian American community than those seeking to divide us. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mayor. That's really powerful and for making the time to be with us today at this critical juncture. I would like to call now to the podium Rishabh Chatty, the Chicago chapter lead for Hindus for Human Rights. Good afternoon. My name is Rishabh Chatty, spelled R-I-S-H-A-B, last name Chatty, C-H-A-T-T-Y, and I'm here representing Hindus for Human Rights. Earlier this week, a man drove to a Hindu temple in Aurora carrying a rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. According to investigators, he intended to kill the people worshipping there. He was a self-described white supremacist and neo-Nazi who allegedly intended to kill people because they were Indians. We are standing here today because his gun reportedly malfunctioned. Think about how horrifying that is. The difference between a community gathering for prayer and a community gathering to bury its dead may have come down to a malfunctioning gun. I'm profoundly relieved that those families are alive, but I'm furious that they were put in this position in the first place. We should not have to wait until our temples become massacre sites before this country takes anti-Hindu hatred, anti-Indian racism, and white supremacist violence seriously. And I'm furious that this hatred is still treated as some fringe phenomenon confined to anonymous extremists on the internet. It is not. Congressman Brandon Gill called Hindu religious ceremonies in Texas third world and said he didn't want them in his community. Beau French, a Republican nominee for statewide office in Texas, circulated a photograph of South Asian students celebrating a University of Texas football game, treating their presence as evidence that foreigners were taking over America. These were college students at a football game, enjoying themselves, and somehow that was a threat to America. Former Ohio gubernatorial candidate Katie Putsch mocked Vivek Ramaswamy's Indian heritage in a video before firing a gun. And Laura Loomer has called Indian immigrants invaders. I want to know when any of this became acceptable. When did Hindu worship become something a congressman could openly disparage? When did South Asian students succeeding at American universities become something to fear rather than celebrate? And what kind of political culture allows gunfire to become the punchline for a joke about someone's Indian identity? These people have names. They have political careers. They have audiences. And they should be held accountable for what they say. To Congressman Gill, Beau French, Katie Putsch, Laura Loomer, and every other political and public figure who has trafficked in this rhetoric, you owe our communities an answer. Retract these hateful remarks. Explain why you thought it was acceptable to make our religion, our ethnicity, and our very presence in this country object to suspicion and contempt. And to those who have elevated or defended these voices, stop making excuses. Hold the people within your own ranks accountable. We know where white supremacy leads. We have seen its violence at mosques, synagogues, black churches, and Sikh gurudwaras. And this week, we came terrifyingly close to witnessing it at a Hindu temple in Illinois. I have a warning for anyone who thinks they can use what happened here to turn our communities against one another. Don't you dare use our pain to advance your own bigotry. Don't use this incident to demonize Muslims, vilify immigrants, or spread hatred against transgender people based on unverified rumors. And you don't get to claim you're protecting Hindu Americans while threatening other vulnerable communities. If your response to white supremacist violence is to find another marginalized community to blame, then you have learned absolutely nothing from what happened in Aurora. Hindus for Human Rights will not stand for it, and we expect every religious leader and elected official speaking about this incident to do the same. do the same. We demand a thorough investigation and accountability under the law. We demand that threats against places of worship be taken seriously before lives are lost. And we demand that political leaders confront the hatred being promoted within their own institutions. Condemnation after an attack is not enough. We need accountability before the next one. The people who gathered to worship in Aurora deserve to return home to their families. They deserve more than the luck of a malfunctioning gun. We refuse to wait for another massacre before America decides that our lives are worth prioritizing. Thank you. Thank you, Risha. I would like to call now to the podium Kalman Resnick of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, longtime friend and supporter of our work at Sacred. My name is Kalman, K-A-L-M-A-N, Resnick, R-E-S-N-I-C-K. I'm here on behalf of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, an organization that was founded more than 50 years ago to bring a Jewish voice to the issues of social justice in our city and in our state. Jewish Americans should be horrified and are horrified by what occurred with this incident. The threat was not just to Indians, not just to Hindus, but to African Americans and Jews. We were called subhuman. Most of American Jews are here because our families faced enormous hatred and fled Europe and came to this country to live in freedom and peace. In my case, three of my cousins were arrested on the streets of Paris by French fascist police, detained in October of 1942, and in February 1943, they were put on a train to Auschwitz and murdered upon their arrival at the death camp, including a two-year-old cousin. Most of my family in France survived because good Christians, good communists, good socialists, good people, united to protect most of my family. I pledge that the Jewish community is going to support our neighbors. We know that the best way to protect ourselves against hatred is to unite with all who are vulnerable to fight hatred and those who support it or spread it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kalman. I'd like now to call to the podium Litsi Kurisinkal, a political, Indian American political activist here in Chicago. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Litsi Kurisinkal, L-I-T-C-Y-K-U-R-I-S-I-N-K-A-L. I am on the board of Indo-American Democratic Organization and Kalapriya Center for Indian Performing Arts. It is not shocking anymore to hear these stories. It is heartbreaking, of course, to hear that there is a terror plot against the Indian-American community in a very sacred space like a religious space. The fact remains that hate crimes are escalating. One thing I would like to say is we really have to look at the way how we classify hate crimes. The way how we look at hate crimes and how it's documented needs to change. We need a reform there, like the very familiar statement, go back to your country, or the structural assaults against minority-owned businesses, or that graffiti on the gates of minority-owned homes. Often, those are registered as vandalism, property crimes, or low-level misdemeanors. But the fact remains that those acts are inspired by hate. It is a strong message to minorities, you know, to displace themselves from this country, seeing them as subhuman, less American. So that needs to change. And for that, we need appropriate legal responses. And for that, we need proper classification of hate crimes and accurate documentation of hate crimes and call it for what it is. So it's very heartwarming to see that all community leaders have come together to kind of stand united to talk against these hate crimes. But we need to kind of elevate our act and ensure that there is accurate documentation of hate crimes and establish proper legal responses so that such hate crimes will not happen again. So I really call for documentation and reform of hate, reform classification. Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to now call to the podium Nidhi Shastri, Community Organizer at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago. My name is Nidhi Shastri, spelled N-I-D-H-I-S-H-A-S-T-R-I, and I am an organizer with Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago. Our organization stands with the South Asian community in Aurora and all of Chicagoland, and we reaffirm our commitment to advancing peace, safety, and security for all. Today, we narrowly avoided another grave tragedy based in hatred and xenophobia. This threat of violence towards the South Asian community is rooted in a history of anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments, and it's intensified by the blatantly racist scapegoating and hateful rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration. Analysis of the most recently published FBI hate crime statistics from our affiliate in D.C., Advancing Justice, AAJC, found that 2025 was one of the worst years for anti-Asian hate crimes. Anti-Hindu hate crimes increased by 12% from 2024 to 2025, making 2025 the highest year on record for anti-Hindu hate crimes. This concerning trend of violence is not separate from hatred aimed at Black, Muslim, Jewish, and other minority communities. But despite experiencing a long and painful history of racist and xenophobic behavior in this country, our Asian communities are rooted in strength, resilience, and perseverance. When faced with racist attacks, my mother always told me, Darwanoo, nay, do not be afraid. Now I want to share that same message with my community. Chicago is our home, and we are here to stay. Thank you so much. I'm going to close with just a couple of quick remarks, and then we'll open for questions. I just want to say I was supposed to spend the day today prepping for the holiday season. I was supposed to be at home figuring out what we're going to do for the upcoming holidays. As the mayor mentioned, it's a very holy period. of the year for hindu communities and you know um diwali is very famous tihar or dasain these are holidays that are coming up in the next month and i was supposed to be prepping for this stuff but instead i'm we're here fighting back it's uh it's a it's a shocking feeling right to think that you will be celebrating and looking forward to something instead of feeling you're being pulled into a very uh painful uh moment and a moment a sense of paralysis and fear um i want want to emphasize that according to the Associated Press articles and the reports about the alleged perpetrator, the perpetrator explicitly was openly anti-black, anti-Jewish, and explicitly anti-Indian. As far as I can tell in the text that has been released thus far, it did not identify the Hindu community specifically, but what it shows is that this is a broader white supremacist ideology targeting people who are different than the individual themselves, himself. So I think in this holy period of the year, there is a major emphasis on spreading knowledge to overcome hate. And so as part of that, I want to close with our final demand, our call to action. There was a report released just earlier this week, October 13th, by a national coalition. Many of the members are supporting this press conference today. The report is called Unreported in the FBI Hate Crimes Data. And if we want to see a true decrease in hate crimes across the country. We must fully fund and restore hate crime prevention and response programs. We must pass the bipartisan Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act. We must ensure greater funding for non-profit security grants. We must fully fund comprehensive community-based approaches to addressing hate crimes. We must reject and condemn dehumanizing rhetoric from public officials of every party. And last but not least, we must support measures to further increase the public's increased media literacy to combat, quote, conspiracy theories and this type of disinformation, misinformation being shared online. Those are our demands. I would like now to open to questions. I know, Ahmed, if you could join, we can take them together. Any questions from the media? I'm sad to announce at this podium at this time that there will be an attack or an attempted attack. I don't know the time. I don't know the place. I don't know the community, but I know there will be one in the future. Because I know when we leave and disband this very meeting, we're going to turn on our TV sets, and we're going to hear the same rhetoric from the same elected officials demonizing our faiths and our communities. And that's what feeds into the cycle. You have a low-hanging fruit, somebody who, in some reports, has mental issues, maybe some social issues, has access to a gun, and it takes one person to flip and then cause a massacre or an attempted massacre. And all of us here, whether Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, or otherwise, we've had houses of worship shot up before. This was an averted disaster, still scary as hell. But I recently remember the San Diego shooting, San Diego mosque shooting, where two individuals were killed who shielded dozens of children from a massacre. And that wasn't that long ago. And right after that, I heard my president speak down to Muslims time and again. making fun of the way they worship, making fun of their names, making fun of the name that we give our one God, amongst other things. And so, to answer your question, we're on high alert, all of us. We feel targeted. We feel vulnerable. We feel that our elected officials are part of the problem, that they're feeding and instigating this hatred, and that it will happen again and again, just like the school shootings. We talk about it, we offer thoughts and prayers, and it happens again and again because we never, ever have the courage in our leadership to go right to the core and deal with the core problem itself that feeds into these terrible days and moments that we experience together. Does this speak to that or another question? I think it's been said, but of course there are devotees and members of congregations across the suburbs and throughout the state of Illinois and frankly the entire nation that are feeling a sense of fear, that are feeling a sense of despair, that are feeling isolated. And I think that's the very purpose of us standing here together today to first and foremost acknowledge what could have happened and be thankful for the individual that stepped forward, the law enforcement. But I would say most importantly to tell everyone that is on their way to a place of worship that you are not alone and that we, of course, have some policies that are there to support you, but we must do more. But again, to hit on the point, we stand with you, and we are going to do everything we can to both hold the people accountable that are causing these tragedies and potential tragedies to occur, while also moving forward to address the policy changes that are needed to be made. Next question. Mayor Lashley, just to sort of piggyback on that, what have been the conversations specifically in Aurora with these directly impacted? Can you just say when you said what happened, what do you mean? What conversations? What happened conversations? Members of that. So I probably am one of the first people up here to find out about the situation as I received a text immediately after it happened from the Aurora Police Department. They've done an excellent job working together with the other law enforcement agencies to bring this young man into custody, but the police have reached out. We've made them aware of other celebrations that are happening, so they are reaching out to those temples to make sure that they know they have a number to call. We have COP officers that don't work the weekends, but regularly patrol areas and will be increased surveillance. More importantly, we have a very robust Aurora Community Watch group that organized themselves during the ice raids last summer and continue this year to respond to these things. And I've been reaching out to community watchers. The Illinois Sikh community has been part of that and is very active in the city of Aurora to make sure that there's a community response, not just a police response. Because ultimately, we're not going to beat this without a change in culture, without a change in how we view each other, without acceptance of people being different than each other. And that's the change that really needs to happen so we don't have this kind of activity again. We're going to have to find those things that we have in common and work together to achieve those. I said that this is an overt effort to accelerate a race war to distract us from the class war. And that is exactly what's happening. There are a lot of people who are suffering economically right now, living paycheck to paycheck. And some of those people who just happen to be white are buying into a message that somehow it's the fault their brown and black neighbors that are causing their own economic strife and that is not the case. It's the wealthiest 1% that are causing that strife and economic inequality in this country. So we can unite around those issues, around the bread-and-butter issues, and that's what brings a community together. Not sure if I answered your question. In terms of additional charges, federal charges, state crime charges, what do you think constitutes justice in this particular case? Look, the solution here isn't more criminalization, right? We keep adding these charges, we keep sentencing people to jail, we keep imposing life sentences on these people. That's not the solution here. We need education, we need training, we need to de-radicalize these folks who have been subject to these right-wing pipelines, who've been force-fed all these types of vitriol and rhetoric that's leading them down this path of violence and of hatred and extremism. We're not going to get that by putting more people in jail. That's not what we want. We don't want more people in prisons. We already have a mass incarceration problem here in Illinois and in Chicago. We're not going to get anywhere by putting more sentences, by putting more people in prison. This individual clearly needed help. He needed mental health help. he needed help de-radicalizing and being taken out of the extremist pipeline. We're not going to do that by putting him in jail. He has been charged with a terrorist threat, which is a Class X felony, and one count of unlawful possession of a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches, a Class 3 felony. You know, I think, while I very much respect that point, I think language does matter, and the facts on the ground that he's been charged with a terrorist threat is that the media ought to use a singular system of language in these incidents. And oftentimes I'll hear things like aurora teen or young man or student and not terrorist, whereas in other cases if the perpetrator happens to be a brown person or of a certain religion or background, it's immediately a terrorist. So I think it's important to keep that consistency in my calls to the media when you report on this, but you call it for what it is. It wasn't a shooting, it wasn't an attempted shooting, it was a terrorist threat, and it's not a teen or a young man, it's a terrorist, until proven otherwise, based on the reports. There is serious under-reporting of hate crimes, so we definitely need to address that. So when hate crimes are labeled as vandalism or property crimes or low-level misdemeanors, we are not accounting to the intensity of hate crimes that's happening in our country so that's something that we really need to kind of need a policy change and we need more attention to address that on the other side you know the otherization of community exists it's a reality we need more platforms like interfaith platforms more conversation to get to know the entity or the unknowns in your life. So I think we need more community building and interfaith conversations and more platforms for people to kind of get to know each other and to be comfortable to respectfully disagree. We don't have to be human clones. We don't have to have same ideology. We don't have to have same philosophy. But just to give that listening ear and to understand the others and to build a community and to have a more amicable world around us is what we need. Thank you. We have an election on November 3rd. What we need to do is defeat any candidate for office who supports hatred or any candidate for office who is unwilling to condemn those who espouse hatred. We need to use our votes and we need to throw out of office against those who tolerate hate, support hate, or espouse hatred. I think with that, we're going to close. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you to our national and local partners. We will keep you informed as we move forward on this.