Official: NYPD Probe of Muslims hurts trust

NEWARK -- The NYPD's surveillance of Muslims has damaged the public's trust in New Jersey law enforcement and jeopardized some of the relationships agents had sought to build in the community since 9/11, the head of the FBI in New Jersey said Wednesday.

Michael Ward, agent in charge of the FBI's Newark division, said that Muslims have become less cooperative in investigations, which "creates additional risks, it creates blind spots."

"It hinders our ability to have our finger on the pulse of what's going on around the state, and thus it causes problems and makes the job of the Joint Terrorism Task force much, much harder," Ward said at a news conference.

Ward said he knew less about the NYPD's intelligence division operations in the state, which he said he's not fully briefed on, and which have come under criticism after a series of reports by The Associated Press detailing the department's monitoring of mosques, Muslim-owned businesses and college campuses across the Northeast.

Ward said it was those types of activities that risk undermining a key aspect of law enforcement: the ability to enlist the trust and cooperation of the public.

"We're starting to see cooperation pulled back," Ward said. "People are concerned that they're being followed, they're concerned that they can't trust law enforcement and it's having a negative impact."

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne criticized Ward's comments, pointing to several cases that his department had worked in conjunction with New Jersey law enforcement on, such as the arrest of Mohamed Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to join an al-Qaida-affiliated group.

"The NYPD has established strong ongoing relations in the Muslim community, and our intelligence gathering has led to the capture of the radical converts Almonte and Alessa in New Jersey," Browne said, citing several other terror cases.

Ward also cited the Almonte and Alessa cases as an example of the positive relationship he said his agency has long had with the NYPD.

But he said his concerns were that not knowing the scope of the NYPD intelligence division's activities in New Jersey could undermine the work of the task force.