The Daily Populous Thursday July 16th, 2026 night edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by sevolatte

A man was arrested in Utah for stabbing a Muslim ⁠man multiple times and ⁠stated that he targeted ​the victim because of the victim’s religion, police said in court records on Tuesday.

Police said the suspect told them he “intends to kill Muslims” and that ⁠he constituted “a substantial danger to the public if released based on his violent actions ... ideologies and pre-planned mass casualty events”.

The incident took place inside the Valley Fair Mall ⁠in Utah’s West Valley City on Monday. The male victim had “multiple stab wounds all over his body and was ​bleeding profusely”, police said in an affidavit.

Authorities said ‌the suspect was pinned to ‌the ground by bystanders before officers arrived on the scene.

The suspect, Peter Michael Larsen, 48, was booked ‌into the Salt Lake county jail for an investigation over attempted murder and prohibited dangerous weapon conduct, jail records showed on Tuesday. The victim was a male Muslim kiosk worker.

The suspect said “he had targeted the victim with intent to kill him because of his religion [Muslim],” according to the police booking affidavit.

The suspect approached the Muslim man, asked for his name, asked about his religion and indicated he wanted ‌a bottle of water, the Salt Lake Tribune reported, citing comments from Imam Shuaib Din, who leads the Utah Islamic Center and had been in contact with the victim’s ​family.

As the victim turned to get the water, the attacker began stabbing him, according to Din.

The victim was hospitalized and in critical condition. A friend set up a GoFundMe page for him, which said the Muslim man was stabbed 15 times and needed surgeries. The attacker was also hospitalized because of wounds sustained while he was ⁠subdued by bystanders, before being booked into the Salt Lake county jail.

Muslim rights groups, ​including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, ​condemned the incident.

US rights advocates have ​noted rising Islamophobia over the last two-plus decades following the September 11, 2001, attacks, and ​more recently because of ‌anti-immigration policies, white supremacy ​and the fallout of ​Israel’s war in Gaza.

Deadly violent attacks in recent years include a 2023 stabbing of a six-year-old Muslim child in Illinois whose killer was sentenced to 53 years in prison and died in custody, and a 2026 shooting at a San Diego mosque that left five dead, including two teenage suspects.

BooobiesANDbho on July 15th, 2026 at 13:50 UTC »

Local here. A lot of people are pissed about this. The person that did the stabbing has a history with the local pd, Mf lit his lawn on fire a couple of years ago, on the 4th of July, cops shot him….

Dudes out free stabbing people, a lot of shit slinging at our d.a., and rightfully so.

my brown ass would have been ded🤷‍♂️

an-invisible-hand on July 15th, 2026 at 13:45 UTC »

It's pretty crazy that after I leave this page I'll probably never hear about this again, but if it were the other way around I wouldn't be able to escape this news for at least a month and it would be a right wing talking point for years. Really makes you think.

drunkerbrawler on July 15th, 2026 at 13:42 UTC »

Where are the hate crime charges? He already admitted to it.