4 April 9 - 15, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents ‘Hate-Filled Attack’ ‘Street preacher’ with criminal charges dis- rupts Muslim prayer at White Rock Lake. BY EMMA RUBY W hen Christopher Svo- chak approached a group of nearly two dozen men and chil- dren picnicking at White Rock Lake in Dallas last month, he was already filming on his cell phone. A handful of the adult men wore loose tu- nics and sat on their knees, then bowed their foreheads to the ground in prayer as the sun set, a video posted to Svochak’s Instagram on March 23 shows. It does not take long af- ter Svochak begins his address for the men to pack away cups and kettles and fold up their informal prayer rugs, the serenity of the evening shattered. “Good evening, terrorists, muzzies, sui- cide bombers. Lend me your ears,” Svochak said. “You know that you need Jesus Christ instead of your stupid pedophile prophet Mohammed. You see, if you’re going to pray in Texas, you better have a Christian in the band, because we don’t want no Muslims blowing up like Pakistan.” When reached by the Observer for com- ment, Svochak, a street preacher from Waco, said that the “White Rock Lake outreach” stemmed from “a desire to save [the Muslim worshippers] from everlasting destruction and their sinful ways.” Digging further, we found several incidents that have occurred in Texas and nationally over the last several months in which Svochak engaged in efforts to disrupt Muslims in prayer. The targeting comes at a time when anti- Muslim sentiment is spiking in the United States, according to Muslim civil rights or- ganizations and the Southern Poverty Law Center. A 2025 report by the Council on Ameri- can-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination had reached the highest level since the group began tracking them in 1996. That shift has been felt by the Muslim community at every level, said Mustafaa Carroll, execu- tive director of CAIR-DFW. He described Svochak’s video as one he “could have done without” seeing, but added that he starts most days by looking into a similar report of harassment, discrimination or hate. “If it didn’t affect our community, I could laugh at it,” Carroll told the Observer. “That’s a hate-filled attack. People are pray- ing, and you’re sitting up there yelling and screaming at them, and calling them names and talking about how they’ve got a pedo- phile prophet and all this other craziness. It’s uneducated people.” Anti-Muslim Attacks I n a statement to the Observer, Svochak identified himself as the leader of the or- ganization Kingdom Reconcilers, which aims to spread an extreme, evangelical mes- sage by preaching at events such as pride festivals or Islamic gatherings. Last November, Svochak approached a group of Muslim high school students pray- ing outside of a coffee shop in Murphy, near Plano, social media videos show. He ac- knowledged that he was “mocking” the teens’ religion by hovering his hand over their heads in a game of “duck, duck, goose” before he began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. In an interview with Interfaith America, one student said he’d been scared that Svochak would become violent during the incident. Svochak was accused of throwing a Quran into a fire during an event hosted by the University of Houston Muslim Students Association last October. According to Houston Public Media, the university police department investigated the incident. Vid- eos on Svochak’s Instagram show him speaking over Muslims mid-prayer at a Plano park; singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to a Muslim run club based in Dallas; threatening damnation on a group praying on the grassy knoll. He also faces criminal charges for dis- rupting a student prayer gathering at the University of South Florida. Svochak de- clined to comment on the charges. A state- ment by the Hillsborough County state attorney’s office explained that while police initially had charged Svochak and two other men with a hate crime, prosecutors down- graded the charges to disorderly conduct because the men did not engage in a physical disruption of the worship. “While one’s words may be offensive, the criminal justice system punishes actions, not words alone,” the attorney’s office wrote. It is generally believed that hate crimes go underreported, said Caleb Kieffer, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center. In 2024, the last year for which data was available, CAIR recorded 8,683 complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination nationwide. Still, in that same year, the De- partment of Justice recorded only 26 official hate crimes involving anti-Muslim bias. “The psychological aspect that comes with someone driving into your town, whip- ping up frenzy and hysteria driven by con- spiracy theories about your faith, I think that really does harm to a community, even if there isn’t an ac- tual hate crime that can be reported,” said Kieffer. Svochak was charged for the Uni- versity of South Florida event along- side Richard Pen- koski, the leader of the Christian group Warriors for Christ, which is designated as an extremist hate group by the SPLC. Svochak said he is not, and has never been, a member of the group. While extremist groups tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center have never shied away from anti-Muslim sentiment, Kieffer said the message has gained more mainstream buy-in over the last year, espe- cially in Texas. The proposed Collin County community for Muslims, EPIC City, may have given some politicians and activists “something to organize around.” Since the community was announced, it has been the subject of state investigations and protests, which the Observer has reported have af- fected the East Plano Islamic Center’s food pantry and mosque. An anti-sharia law message — which Kieffer described as “buzzwords” meant to inspire fear — has gained traction in Wash- ington, too. According to NOTUS, at least 55 members of Congress have joined the Sharia Free America Caucus launched earlier this year by North Texas Congressman Keith Self and Central Texas Rep. Chip Roy. “We’ve seen anti-Muslim demonstra- tions in places like Texas, in places like Michigan, [at a scale that] we hadn’t seen since 2015 or 2016,” Kieffer said. “You have members of Congress willing to associate their names with this caucus that is parrot- ing and pushing conspiracy theories that we’d seen once relegated to more of the fringe, anti-Muslim hate circles that [SPLC] tracks.” In many of his videos, Svochak accuses Muslims of being a part of a violent or hate- ful religion. We asked whether he worried that his rhetoric, accusing men in prayer of being “suicide bombers” or worshipping a “pedo- phile prophet,” may prevent his pro-Chris- tian message from coming across. Svochak responded with statistics about Christian persecution that he believes is perpetrated by Muslims. That kind of “aggression” drives his statements “about the terroristic political threat that disguises itself as a fake religion designed to conquer the world,” he said. For Carroll, the local CAIR leader, the hate has become exhausting. Growing up as a Black man during mid-20-century Amer- ica, he was taught about church bombings and lynchings — real violence that inspires terror. “[Svochak] has the freedom to sit up here and curse and whatever vitriol he wants to put out, he can put that out. That’s what free speech is,” Carroll said. “They call Muslims terrorists who are in this country who have not done anything. Most of these Muslims here are law-abiding citizens. They work hard, they pray, and they go to the mosque. That’s it. That’s what they do.” ▼ IMMIGRATION DON’T PUT ICE ON IT FEARING ICE, UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS ARE AVOIDING MEDICAL CARE. BY AUSTIN WOOD U ndocumented immigrants in Texas are foregoing medical care amid on- going fears of being detained or de- ported, a new report suggests. Part of President Donald Trump’s nation- wide crackdown on immigration, enforce- ment activities in Texas have created a climate of fear in immigrant communities. Arrests in Dallas courtrooms by ICE agents have caused people to miss immigration hearings, and now, The Texas Tribune re- ports, fear is keeping undocumented immi- grants from accessing medical care. Hospital visits by undocumented immi- grants in Texas reportedly declined by 32% from November 2024, when officials re- ported roughly 30,000 visits, to last Adobe Stock A Muslim man prays inside a mosque. | UNFAIR PARK | >> p6 “WHILE ONE’S WORDS MAY BE OFFENSIVE, THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM PUNISHES ACTIONS, NOT WORDS ALONE.” –ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
