CASTRO VALLEY — Rasheed Albeshari never expected that a routine afternoon in an Alameda County regional park with friends would end with an anti-Muslim rant and coffee being thrown in his face.

“We’ve gone there for months,” said Albeshari, who practices the Islamic faith and says that he and his friends have barbecued, played volleyball and prayed often during their gatherings at Lake Chabot. “We’ve spent a long time in that park, done our thing. Never, ever any problems.”

That easygoing tradition ended Sunday, when Albeshari says a woman hurled anti-Islam slurs at him and his friends, then threw hot coffee in his face. East Bay Regional Parks police were investigating the incident as a battery, but no charges had been filed.

The woman, identified as Denise Slader, has worked for 10 years as a program technician in the adult parole operations division for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The agency is conducting an internal investigation, but Slader has not been placed on leave. “All employees are afforded due process,” corrections spokesman Luis Patino said. “At this time, there is no change in her status.”

The corrections department “expects its employees to abide by a code of conduct that includes respecting the rights of others,” Patino said, “regardless of personal characteristics, including ancestry and religion.”

Calls to Slader, 50, were not returned Wednesday. A knock at the family home in Castro Valley also went unanswered.

Police took statements from both parties and filed a report, but no arrests have been made, said Carolyn Jones, spokeswoman for East Bay Regional Park police. The Alameda County District Attorney is exploring whether the incident can be considered a hate crime, Jones said.

“This incident is completely unacceptable,” Jones said. “People come to parks for a peaceful time to relax with family and friends, especially with what’s going on in the world right now.

“People are allowed to pray in the park, people do everyday. They should not be subject to harassment.”

The incident sparked criticism on social media and the video drew thousands of views.

“I assume there will be charges,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said Wednesday. “She has the right to be an anti-Muslim bigot, but she doesn’t have the right to assault someone. And it looks to me, just from the video, like she threw something at them and hit them.”

Albeshari said Wednesday that he and his friends just finished their prayers Sunday, when the woman approached. He began videotaping as she began berating them, reportedly accusing them of being terrorists.

“The people you tortured, they’re going to spend eternity in Heaven,” the woman said in the video. “You are very deceived by Satan. Your mind has been taken over — brainwashed — and you have nothing but hate. Nothing but hate.”

At that point, a park ranger comes over to the woman and asks the woman if it’s appropriate for her to be haranguing the men.

“It is inappropriate, you’re right, for somebody to tape record me,” the woman said. At that point, she approached the camera and appears to hit the man with an umbrella and toss the coffee. Albeshari can be heard yelling and then tells somebody to “call the cops.”

Albeshari said the friends who were with him don’t speak much English but that they tried to explain to the woman that the entire group “believes in Jesus, we respect Jesus. But she came back and told us Allah is Satan and that Muslims were all trying to destroy everything nice. That’s when I started videotaping.”

The incident came less than a week after a Muslim couple killed 14 people during a shooting rampage in San Bernardino.

“We can’t keep up with the reports of harassment, let alone the hate rhetoric,” Hooper said. “It’s become like a hose spraying hate. It really makes you wonder where we’re going as a people.”

Said Albeshari: “I feel violated. I feel very angry. Depressed. People need to realize that we’re just as afraid of people like that.”

Albeshari said he grew up in Tennessee but that he and his parents originally are from Yemen, where he said he was born. He said he moved to California from North Carolina in 2011.

“On the bright side, a lot of people approached us after it was over and told us that’s not what America is about and that’s not who Americans are,” he said. “And we know that.”

Contact Rick Hurd at 925-945-4789 and follow him at Twitter.com/3rderh.