Reasonable Doubt
‘Our People’
The Somali refugees living in a small meatpacking town in southwestern Kansas loved America. So did the three local men who wanted to kill them.
In the grandeur of a Wichita courtroom in the spring of 2018, three defendants in prison jumpsuits stood trial for conspiring to blow up an apartment complex in the meatpacking town of Garden City, Kansas, that was home to many Somalis. Curtis Allen, 50, Gavin Wright, 52, and the alleged ringleader, Patrick Stein, 49, had talked about planting fertilizer bombs in trucks at the corners of the building. It was the same method favored by al-Qaida terrorists, but the men saw themselves as defenders of an American way of life. They believed Obama was “really” Muslim, and they mistrusted the Muslims they saw in western Kansas, which has become a magnet for immigrants and refugees. The attack was planned for the day after the election to avoid throwing the contest to Hillary Clinton. The FBI rounded them up in October 2016, with a month to spare.
The story had a special resonance for me. I was kidnapped by pirates on a reporting trip to Somalia and spent 32 months as a hostage. I knew what it meant to hate Somalis, and I knew the intolerant side of Islam. But I also knew that hatred was a dead end, a suicidal…
