University police open investigation into alleged Quran flushing incident

University of Texas at Dallas campus police are investigating an incident that happened last month when two Qurans were found in a toilet in the men’s bathroom.

Two students noticed the Muslim holy books in the toilet and apparently alerted the authorities, according to the Texas Tribune.

UT-Dallas Police Chief Larry Zacharias told the Tribune that police are reviewing security video footage from the area to narrow down the list of suspects. He believes the department has uncovered the 30 minute timeframe in which the incident occurred.

“It’s not something we want to blast out on campus because we don’t want people to go, ‘Oh, you’re a suspect in the Quran thing,’” Zacharias said.

“We originally suspected these Qurans may have come out of the Reflection Room, which is on the first floor of the Student Union,” he told KTVT. “We’ve watched video in this timeframe and only two people went into that Reflection Room — both went in empty-handed and both came out empty-handed.”

Zacharias also said he believes that it was a one-time incident, and that there aren’t usually any issues relating to the diverse student body.

“There's not much divisiveness on this campus at all,” he said.

In the past, he has even gone so far as to ask Muslim women on campus if they felt safe, especially during the 2016 presidential elections when rhetoric about Muslims got heated at times. He said they always told him they felt safe, and that the students also believe it was a “one-time, stupid incident.”

“We constantly ask all of our students, from all backgrounds, do they feel safe on campus? And [the answer] is always yes,” Zacharias said.

Since no one has claimed the Qurans as their stolen property, no complaint has been filed. Without a complaint being filed, it is unclear what crime may have been committed.

Zacharias told TheBlaze early Friday that the investigation will continue in the absence of a complaint simply because the act was offensive.

"First, it would not matter if this were a Quran, a Bible, or a Tora, the act of disposing a religious book or symbol in a toilet is considered an offensive act by our University community," he said. "There is an expectation of our community to investigate the incident, even though we have not identified, at this time, a possible owner that would serve as a criminal complainant."

He added that this was the first incident on campus where a specific offensive act was directed at a particular religion.