I can recall reading a few decades ago that St. Cloud, Minnesota, a small city 66 miles northwest of Minneapolis, then had the lowest crime rate in the U.S.. But St. Cloud is putting its hateful white-bread, plain vanilla past behind it.

From CNN:

ISIS wing claims responsibility for Minnesota mall attack

By Chandrika Narayan and Steve Visser, CNN Updated 9:11 PM ET, Sun September 18, 2016

The man who stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall Saturday before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer was a “soldier of the Islamic state,” according to an ISIS-linked news agency….

Community leaders fear anti-Muslim backlash, call for unity

In response to local reports identifying the attacker as being of Somali descent, members of the Muslim and Somali communities held a news conference Sunday expressing their grief for the victims and calling for unity.

“We are also concerned about the potential backlash,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter in Minnesota. “We understand in St. Cloud there is more anti-Muslim organizing and we hope they do not use this incident to divide … our community.”