Arslan Hayat keeps an eye on four alleged FBI cars that staked out his neighborhood and followed him and his friends June 17. (News-Sentinel file photo)

FBI in Lodi: Abusive or just assertive?

They've interviewed people, followed people, arrested people and even, some say, directed planes to fly ceaselessly over the city. There is little doubt the FBI has been a powerful presence in Lodi in the days since the arrest of several local Muslims in what has been termed a terror investigation.

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Several community leaders have claimed that FBI agents have been heavy-handed in what amounts to a campaign of racial and religious profiling. Yet extensive interviews by the News-Sentinel have found little hard evidence of abusive or unprofessional tactics by federal agents, as has been implied by some residents and CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In fact, the FBI has shown flexibility in several areas. FBI agents, for example, have agreed to conduct interviews with locals at the Lodi police headquarters instead of federal offices in Sacramento. They also agreed to a press briefing exclusively with local media soon after the arrests.

And the FBI has brought a number of agents with language and cultural fluency into the Lodi case to assure sensitivity.

While there is plenty of evidence the FBI has been quite visible, even assertive, in its dealings with Lodians, there is scant proof yet of any real abuse.

Organized crime case once drew FBI to Lodi

In June, five Lodi men were arrested by FBI agents. Umer Hayat, 47, his son, Hamid Hayat, 22, were accused of lying to federal agents; it is alleged that Hamid attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan with the knowledge and financial support of his father.

Two former Lodi imams were also arrested on immigration charges: Shabbir Ahmed, 35, and Mohammad Adil Khan, 47, and Khan's son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19. Adil Khan and his son have agreed to be deported rather than face federal charges.

The arrest drew a boisterous legion of media -- and a force of FBI agents.

Jerry Adams

Lodi Police Chief Jerry Adams said the city probably hasn't seen an FBI investigation of this magnitude since 1980, when Lou Peters, a local car dealer, served as an informant to help the bureau's organized crime unit bring down mobsters Joe Bonano and Jack Di Filippi.

"Since then, this has probably been the largest case involving the FBI that I'm aware of," the chief said.

Though the FBI will not confirm or deny it, relatives of the Hayat family say FBI agents follow them almost everywhere they go.

Just days after the arrests, Usamaa Ismail, Hamid Hayat's cousin, was tailed by mysterious cars with dark-tinted windows and Nevada license plates that would park a short distance from his Acacia Street house. Standing on the curb near his house a week after the arrests, Ismail often cautiously glanced over his shoulder at one of the cars on Central Avenue while he talked.

The same cars often gathered near Blakely Park throughout June, parking on the street or in the lot at Big Valley Bible Church as they watched a group of youths -- many of them relatives of the Hayats -- chat, smoke cigarettes and play basketball in the park across the street from the mosque.

Now pointing out the cars is a pastime for the youths.

A muslim youth stares down two FBI servalance cars on June 17 at Washington and Poplar streets in Lodi. (Mike Graffigna/News-Sentinel)

The surveillance was disturbing for a contingent of civil rights attorneys who came to Lodi to look into harassment claims that surfaced shortly after the arrests.

Mark Schlosberg, police practices policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and Shirin Sinnar, of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights, came to a CAIR-sponsored Know Your Rights forum in Lodi.

After arriving, a man wearing a novelty afro wig in an SUV tailed them and took pictures when they stopped, Schlosberg said.

"It is disturbing that lawyers who went down to try to investigate to see what was going on, that we ourselves were also subjected to surveillance," he said.

The ACLU of Northern California is still waiting for results of its June 16 Freedom of Information Act request. That request seeks information on access to attorneys for individuals questioned or approached by the FBI, when agents must inform those individuals of their right to an attorney, and when the FBI should seek a polygraph test and when translators must be provided.

The request also seeks information on when agents should allow or provide medical treatment to individuals who experience health problems during an FBI search, presumably since one of Umer Hayat's daughters fainted during the FBI's search of his home.

But is tailing someone a violation of civil rights?

"It's really hard to say without having the specific facts and specific circumstances," Schlosberg said.

Jack Cloonan, a former FBI agent turned ABC News consultant, said on ABC Nightline that cars tailing local Muslims encroaches on racial profiling.

"It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in this position," Cloonan, former head of the FBI's bin Laden unit, told anchor Ted Koppel, during a segment focused exclusively on Lodi.

But law enforcement can do little else but "surround the community the best they can" when information about a case is limited.

To learn as much about a case as possible, "you lock bumpers with some people you suspect," Cloonan said.

Agents also can play on rifts in the Muslim community to extract new information from its members, Cloonan said. Those tactics can come with accusations of heavy handedness, he said.

The bureau was criticized vigorously in the wake of 9/11 for missteps prior to the attacks. Now there is a culture in the FBI that seeks to create a visible presence so it is not caught off guard again, the former agent said.

Still, the special agent in charge of the investigation will be held accountable. At the end of the year, supervisors will review how well the special agent in charge has worked with the Muslim community, Cloonan said.

Cloonan did not return calls requesting further comment.

Agents requested interviews from an unknown but apparently substantial number of Lodi's Muslims, which drew mixed reactions.

While there were claims of harassment, Muslim convert and Lodi resident James McIntyre termed his talk with agents, "pretty cool."

At the request of community leaders, the police department later opened up its interview rooms to the FBI.

The police department received a number of calls from residents concerned about suspicious vehicles parked near their homes, Adams said.

"On a couple of occasions it had been FBI surveillance," Adams said. "They'll pop up in different locations."

Several days after the arrests, a reporter approached a parked silver car with dark tinted windows last week near Blakely Park. A man inside told the reporter not to bother him because he was on duty.

A spokesman for the FBI's Sacramento office couldn't confirm or deny whether the cars and their occupants are part of the bureau's investigation.

"I really don't have any information on that," Special Agent John Cauthen said.

Lackawanna similarities

The mysterious cars also popped up in Lackawanna, N.Y., before and after terror-related arrests there, Police Chief Dennis O'Hara said.

In the days leading up to the arrest of six men on suspected connections to terrorism, cars with out-of-state plates camped out in largely Arab neighborhoods, O'Hara said. A plane also circled overhead, he said.

But the air of secrecy eventually evaporated.

"After a while they really didn't care who knew why they were there or who saw them," he said.

Cauthen said the investigation is being conducted in the interest of protecting national security.

"We're conducting a professional, thorough and logical investigation as it pertains to the matter in Lodi," Cauthen said. "We conduct our investigations in a professional manner, in a manner in which the American people would be proud."

But the mysterious cars, and the intimidation that accompanies them, was unsettling to Pastor Alan Kimber of the First United Methodist Church. Kimber fled his native South Africa due to the violence brought by the anti-Apartheid movement in the 1980s.

As a crew from Nightline set up to interview local Muslims inside First Methodist Church, several of the cars that had been tailing locals camped out nearby during the taping.

"I felt like deja vu," Kimber said.

Kimber has lived in the United States since the 1980s, but those events at the church make him wonder if things are really so very different.

"I left South Africa thinking I left that behind," he said.

According to Cauthen, the FBI's Sacramento office has received no specific allegations of misconduct or civil rights violations by agents. Formal complaints about the Lodi investigation have not been received either, he said, adding that content of such complaints are not made public.

When officials for the Sacramento Valley chapter of the CAIR sounded an alarm that agents allegedly were harassing and violating the civil rights of and intimidating Muslims in Lodi, FBI management met with them to investigate their claims, Cauthen said.

"We looked into this, we reached out to the community, we looked into the people who were making these complaints and there was nothing," Cauthen said.

He said residents are free to report complaints to the bureau's Sacramento office.

"The SAC (special agent in charge) has an open door," he said.

Watching every move?

"They can say that if they want to," Dina El-Nakhal, director of communications for the CAIR chapter, said of the FBI being unable to substantiate complaints of harassment by agents.

El-Nakhal said CAIR has documented the stories of Muslims interviewed by the FBI and is working on a report of their findings that will be made public when finished.

She said CAIR found that agents told a few Muslims they would be watching their every move if they refused to submit to an interview or lie detector test.

"To have someone tell you that we're going to be watching you like a hawk is a bit excessive and a little unnecessary," El-Nakhal said. "It's not a big deal, but it caused a lot of fear for a lot of people ... ."

After repeated requests, CAIR was unable to provide any names of residents who were allegedly mistreated by agents, but did offer evidence that some had been followed by agents.

El-Nakhal said the fact that agents were tailing Muslims and others who associated with Muslims after the arrests is tantamount to racial and religious profiling.

"Constitutional and civil rights issue are very important to the FBI," Cauthen said. "We investigate these types of issues. We investigate those complaints -- against ourselves or against other agencies. That is a priority issue to us."

Mohammad Ishaq, of Lodi, said the sudden onslaught of attention from both the media and federal agents "is a problem for the Muslim community."

"We've never had anything like this before," said Ishaq, 46, as he rested in the park across the street from the mosque.

Ishaq said he believes the community is helpless to do anything about pressure from federal agents if their methods are legal.

"No one can stop them," he said. "If it's in their law, it's in their law."

Larry Hansen

Lodi City Councilman Larry Hansen, a former Lodi police chief, said the FBI is in a position that will draw criticism regardless of their actions.

"I think they've got a tough job to do. Quite frankly, I think they're damned if they do damned if they don't," Hansen said. "That said, I think it is all important that we remember not to stereotype our brothers and sisters in the Muslim community and recognize that most of them have done nothing wrong."

Agents interviewed many people in Lackawanna, O'Hara said, but police received no complaints and neither did the U.S. Attorneys Office.

An interview called off

After the arrests of his brother and father, Arslan Hayat carried around his father's cell phone to keep in touch with the rest of his family. He said the FBI called the phone at least 10 times a day to ask him for an interview. He refused each request, and stopped answering the phone after a week or so, he said.

Arslan Hayat was later subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury.

Taj Khan

Taj Khan, a Lodi Muslim and columnist for the News-Sentinel, said he and other community members, Nasim Khan and Ramzan Ali, agreed to meet with the FBI for voluntary interviews at the Lodi Police Station.

The three men arrived for the interview at the station with their attorney.

"When we told them our attorney wanted to record the conversation, they told us they didn't want to do it," Khan said.

Khan said he never heard from the agents after that.

Cauthen said he could not comment on specifics of Khan's interview, nor any other aspects of the Lodi case. But he added that permitting subjects to record interviews is not in the FBI policy.

Ismail was asked by agents to come with them to Sacramento to take a polygraph test.

"I told them the only reason I'd take a polygraph is if it helps Hamid," said Ismail, adding in no uncertain terms that he didn't believe an interview would help his cousin.

Weeks later, Ismail was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. He believes he was called solely because he refused the interview.

Ismail maintains that his cousin was either tricked into telling agents he allegedly attended a terrorism training camp in Pakistan or that agents misunderstood his words spoken in Pushtu, the language spoken by many Pakistanis in Lodi.

According to Cauthen, agents receive general instruction on the religious culture of Islam, as well as training in the regional cultural differences of Muslims. Agents can also draw from the books on Islam and its cultures that sit in the library at the FBI's office in the state capital, he said.

The bureau also makes use of a wide range of translators and interpreters who are sensitive to the intricacies of regional dialects, Cauthen said.

"They come from all walks of life, really," Cauthen said.

Aman Khan, a local druggist who was interviewed at the FBI's Sacramento office, declined to discuss his interview. Several other local Muslims interviewed either at their homes or at an FBI office also declined to discuss their interviews.

Beyond the tailings and interviews, the government's prosecution of the case against the Hayats has given some in academia pause.

"I hope they know what they're doing," said John Phillips, a sociology and criminology professor at University of the Pacific.

Said Phillips of the government's Lodi case: "You hope they know something you and I don't now."

As the days have passed, pointing out suspected agents in parked cars is now an amusement for the dozen or so Muslim youths who gather in Blakely Park some afternoons.

As they chew tobacco and talk, the youths often point to cars that will stop on the street or in parking lots a few hundred feet away. Once, when the cars arrived at the park shortly after Arslan Hayat, Hamid Hayat's 16-year-old brother, two teenagers piled into a car to play a prank.

"Watch this," one said, as they piled into the car and drove off to a chorus of the suspected FBI cars starting up.

Four unmarked cars followed close behind them as they circled the park and returned to park in the same parking stall.

Reporter Layla Bohm contributed to this report.

Contact reporter Jake Armstrong at jakea@lodinews.com.