This is what a HATE CRIME looks like!

Minority communities are always compelled to fight for justice

A mother and her two young children playing in a pool on a hot day in a suburb of Dallas should be a time for fun and merriment. And it was, that is until 42-year-old Elizabeth Wolf, a white woman from the area, saw that the mother was wearing a hijab and the children were Brown. At that point, Wolf questioned the mother about where she was from and made statements about her not being American, as well as “other racial statements.”

A visibly angry Wolf then grabbed the 6-year-old boy, causing a scratch on his finger as he pulled away. At that point—as the police reported--“The mother began helping her son when Wolf grabbed her 3-year-old daughter and forced her underwater.”  The mother “was able to pull her daughter from the water. Her daughter had been yelling for help and was coughing up water.”  That is when “Wolf also snatched the mother’s headscarf off and beat her with it,” as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported.

A witness, Emma Aziz, who was at the pool that same day with her 7-year-old was interviewed by local Fox affiliate said she heard the mother screaming as she watched Wolf plunge the 3 year-old child’s head underwater. Aziz recalled the mother saying, “Help me! She’s killing my baby, she’s killing my baby!'”

The attack ended--as the mother identified only as Mrs. H explained--when an African American man helped rescue her daughter from the attacker and more people gathered. The attacker reportedly shouted to a bystander who was calming the mother down, “Tell her I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family.”

In a statement shared by CAIR, the mother “Mrs. H” said, “We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” adding that amid Israel’s war in Gaza, she and her family were “facing that hate here.”

This is what a hate crime looks like. People attacked simply because of their race, religion or ethnicity.  If the family in the pool were white, this doesn’t happen. Period.

The Euless Police Department –where the attack took place—did promptly arrest Wolf that day but for public intoxication. Four days later, though, on May 23, the Tarrant County criminal district attorney’s did file charges of attempted capital murder and injury to a child against Wolf.

However, despite Wolf’s actions clearly being fueled by bigotry—as evidenced from her comments-- she was not formally charged with a hate crime. That is why this past Saturday, the Dallas chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference demanding the DA also charge with hate crimes. CAIR leaders also called for Wolf’s bail—that was set at only $40,000—to be raised given the seriousness of the crimes.

At the conference, Democratic State Rep. Salman Bhojani who represents the area, stated “I’m shocked and appalled by this alleged racist, Islamophobic occurrence that took place in my town. Hate has no place in Euless…or anywhere in our great state.”

And on Monday, President Biden publicly condemned the attack, writing on Twitter, “I am deeply disturbed by the reports of an attempted drowning of a 3-year old Palestinian-American at a neighborhood pool. No child should ever be subjected to a violent attack, and my heart goes out to the family.”

The public pressure does appear to be working. In response to numerous press inquiries, the Euless Police Department issued a statement on Monday that read, “The Euless Police Department believes the crime was committed because of bias or prejudice and that is part of the case as it has been filed with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office.” And the DA’s office has commented that they are reviewing possible hate crime charges.

This is just another example of how minority communities are repeatedly forced to protest, plead and raise their voices to simply to see that justice is served. The Black community knows this better than any with their decades and decades of protests to compel the prosecution of those who have threatened, attacked and even killed people in their own community.

We saw a glaring example of that in February 2020, when 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was shot in Brunswick, Georgia by armed white men. It was only when cellphone video was released of the murder which prompted protests was Arbery’s killers charged in May—including for hate crimes.  If not for the video and ensuing protests, the killers of Arbery would have unlikely ever been charged.

And just last year, in Kansas City, Missouri, 16 year-old Ralph Yarl, who was on his way to pick up his twin brothers from a friend's house and accidentally went to the wrong address, was shot in the head by 85-year-old White homeowner Andrew Lester. At first, Lester was released by the police with no charges. That sparked protests in the streets and extensive media coverage. Finally about a week later, Lester was charged with two serious felonies.

Other communities have also been forced to publicly call for hate crime charges in cases that clearly demand such action. For example, the Asian American community protested in 2021 outside the Manhattan DA’s office after a  Chinese man--walking home near Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood—was stabbed in the back by a man who suddenly ran up behind him. This was at a time during Covid when our nation had seen a rash of anti-Asian attacks. One organizer of the event stated, “These are not random attacks. We’re asking for recognition that these crimes are happening.”

There has also been calls by the Jewish American community to rightfully see hate crime charges against those who targeted them for their faith—especially now given the horrific spike in anti-Semitic incidents.

The attack by Wolf on the Palestinian mother and her children reminds us of the barbaric incident last October in the suburbs of Chicago. That is when 6-year-old Muslim American child Wadea Al-Fayoume was killed by an older white man who had spewed anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate before stabbing the child to death—and stabbing his mother as well. As the killer’s wife told the police after the arrest, he "listens to conservative talk radio on a regular basis" and became obsessed with the war between Hamas and Israel. The killer was charged with hate crimes in addition to murder and attempted murder.

And in November, three Palestinian-American college students were walking on the streets of Vermont while wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic when Jason Eaton, 48, came down the porch of a home, pulled out a pistol and shot them.  Eaton said nothing before shooting the three. While Eaton was charged with three counts of attempted murder, despite demands by the community, he was not charged with hate crimes. Obviously, Eaton—like Wolf—targeted these three because of who they were.

In the case of Wolf’s attack on the Palestinian children and mother, the public pressure appears to be having the impact demanded.  In other cases, though, the public pressure may not always result in the desired outcome but at least it still raises awareness about the issues.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. declared more than 50 years ago, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”  Those words still ring true today for all working towards the goal of justice.

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