CHICAGO – Muslims in Chicago denounced Republican Congressman Joe Walsh’s comments to a town hall meeting that there are radical Muslims in this country who are “trying to kill Americans every week,” saying Friday that such remarks inspire hate crimes against minorities.

Walsh, a conservative tea party-backed politician from suburban Chicago, has acquired a reputation for contentious rhetoric during his first term and especially during his tough battle for re-election in November.

“One thing I’m sure of is that there are people here in this country – there is a radical strain of Islam in this country; it’s not just over there – trying to kill Americans every week,” Walsh told a meeting Wednesday in the suburb of Elk Grove. “It is a real threat. And it is a threat that is much more at home now than it was right after 9/11.”