Arkansas mosque pays the $1,700 fine levied on a vandal who defaced it with swastikas, slurs

In October 2016, Abraham Davis was captured on video vandalizing the Masjid Al Salam mosque in Fort Smith, Arkansas, spray-panting swastikas and other unfriendly messages across the Islamic center's front. He was sentenced to community service and a "hefty fine," KARK 4's Peyton Yager reports, and when the mosque found out that Davis couldn't pay the fine, it wrote a check for the remaining $1,700, from a fund earmarked for mosque renovations. "If you don't pay your fine, that's an automatic six years in jail," mosque president Louay Nassri explained. "Well, we didn't want him to go to jail for six years."

"If he would've known who we are, he wouldn't of done this," Nassri told KARK 4. "If we would've known his troubles with us, we would've tried to help him. Communication is extremely important. Education is extremely important." You can watch the report below.