After a deadly shooting at San Diego’s largest Islamic center, Mehdi speaks to the mother of a preschooler who was locked down during the harrowing ordeal and asks her about the rise in Islamophobia.
On April 18, 2026, I was arrested on felony charges and jailed for three days in Dane County, Wisconsin. I was the leader of 1,000+ people who had just engaged in a brutal confrontation with police. At my bail hearing, a court commissioner ruled I was so dangerous that he had to take the unprecedented step of banning me from the county entirely.