Cerritos Home Tied to Maker of Anti-Islamist Film

UPDATE (Thursday, 5:20 p.m.): The street outside the Cerritos home is crowded with media outlets, from as far away as NTV in Japan to local L.A. stations. A reporter approached the front door of the home and peeked through a window in the door. About 10 minutes later, someone inside the home taped up paper over the window.

Multiple knocks on the door by various reporters have failed to attract an answer from the home's occupants.

As neighbors arrived home from work and neighborhood kids came home from school, the media spectacle unfolding in the quiet Cerritos neighborhood was something to talk about.

"Look at all those cameras... Take a picture of those cameras," one mother remarked to her daughter who snapped pictures of televisoin reporters, photographers and large satellite trucks.

A short time later, a group of middle school-aged kids, who live in the area and said they were friends with one of Nakoula's sons, also knocked on the front door to see if anybody would come out. Their knocks also went unanswered.

Residents in the area told Patch that this stretch of street is normally quiet and uneventful. The fact that such a neighbor may have a connection to such a large world news event was something they said they never expected.

"They seem normal," said Hana Shields, who lives nearby. "I am shocked. Just completely in shock, especially in this neighborhood," she said. "It is a very quiet neighborhood...everybody is friendly."

John Schreiber of Cerritos-Artesia Patch is stationed at the scene. Check back with Patch for any additional updates.

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A man who claims to have made the movie suspected of sparking the outrage and demonstrations that turned violent in Cairo and Libya and led to the slayings of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three others apparently has ties to the city of Cerritos.

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In a phone interview with The Wall Street Journal late Tuesday, a California real-estate developer who identified himself as 52-year-old Israeli-American Sam Bacile said he made the film -- "Muhammad Movie Trailer" (also referred to as the "Innocence of Muslims") -- and was backed by Jewish donors. 

The low budget 14-minute trailer, which was posted on YouTube in early July under an account listed as "Sam Bacile", includes vulgar and offensive scenes that insult and mock the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Portions of the actors lines also seem to have been poorly edited and dubbed over with voiceovers in post-production -- something that has left one of the actors threatening to sue the filmmaker. 

According to the WSJ, a records search performed on Wednesday turned up no references to anyone in the U.S. by the name Sam Bacile. The cell phone number used in the initial phone interview, the WSJ reports, was registered to a user at a home in Cerritos but the number had since been disconnected.

Cerritos Home Draws Heavy Police and Media Presence Wednesday Night

According to a local resident, several members of the media along with Cerritos sheriff's deputies converged on a residence located south of 166th Street and Bloomfield Avenue, where the alleged filmmaker may reside. Calls to the questioning reports of the filmmaker's possible ties to the city were deferred to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau, which as of about 5:30 a.m. had no official comment on the matter. Media outlets from all over the world were reportedly bombarding the Cerritos Station with calls starting late Wednesday night. 

A public records search performed by Patch of the Cerritos residence in question shows ties to the name Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.

The WSJ reported that a young man who answered the door at that home on Wednesday afternoon said a man named Nakoula B. Nakoula lived there. But when another man answered the door at other times that same day, he said no one by that name lived there.

The Associated Press, however, reported early Thursday that it had tracked down Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who admitted to helping with logistics for the film, but he denied directing it. Nakoula also told the AP that he knew the self-described filmmaker, Sam Bacile.

Nakoula further denied posing as Bacile, although when he offered his driver's license to show his identity he kept his thumb over his middle name, Basseley, according to the AP. 

Southland Muslim Leaders Condemn Film

Southern California Muslim leaders have condemned the slaying of the U.S. ambassador and the three foreign service workers as well as the film implicated at the heart of the outrage.

"It is certainly not a random act,'' Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said of the movie at a news conference in Anaheim Wednesday. 

The movie "lacks any intellectual basis,'' Ayloush said. "It only includes vulgar and offensive scenes to incite and provoke such behavior from those who lack rationality in dealing with hate messages."

"The extremists who produced the movie threw bait and the extremist Muslims took the bait,'' he said. 

The movie and the reaction to it show "a conflict (between) people who believe religion unites us versus those who use and abuse religion to promote their narrow agendas of hate and extremism,'' Ayloush said.

- John Schreiber also contributed to this report along with City News Service.