outpouring of support he s received from around the world. it could have been so much worse and i am overflowing. truly overflowing with gra gratitude. and i am so grateful. i m so grateful for your presence here tonight. reporter: jake, this afternoon we ve also learned that the hostage taker about ten days ago showed up at the islamic center of irving, which is just several miles away from the synagogue here in colleyville. we are told by a spokesperson for the islamic center that the suspect was asking for a place to stay. he was turned away and then became hostile. told the people at the islamic center they were going to hell. he showed up the next day acting very nice. that led people there to believe he was just not a stable person. jake? ed lavandera, thanks. let s discuss this with cnn
you might know the town of irving, texas, as the former hometown of ahmed mohammed, the boy arrested he brought a clock to school and his teacher thought it was a bomb. on saturday in that same town, arounded protesters gathered outside the islamic center of irving, most carrying long guns, some masked in what they called a protest to stop the islamization of america. you can see one of the masked protesters holding the gun in this video, shot by a fox four reporter outside the mosque and posted to twitter. legitimately frightening scene, people headed into the mosque crossed paths with the gun-wielding sometimes masked protesters. the protest organizer today went even further, publishing the names and addresses of muslims in irving on facebook. telling the dallas morning news he believed that irving mosque had established the country s first islamic court to practice sharia law, a false
really batted an eye in the local political scene until now. so that did happen. it was sort of a one-off thing that i forgot about. but it s kind of crazy now that i think about it in retrospect. is there any indication in terms of my understanding is that irving has a small but active muslim community there. is there organizing happening there? is there some sort of rallying happening around this event? i haven t seen anything really formally organized by the muslim community per se. there s rallies outside macarthur high where ahmed attended today. i did see some people in head scarves and stuff. but i don t get the sense that the islamic center of irving which is the major mosque in irving is coordinating that. in fact, you know, like you kind of referred to, the mosque has always sort of tried to kind of stay away from controversy, even