A woman tries to drown a three-year-old Palestinian child at an apartment complex pool in Euless, Texas. Source: Euless Police Department via facebook.
A woman from Texas has been charged with attempted murder after trying to drown a three-year-old Palestinian child at an apartment complex pool, according to local police.
The Texas chapter of a Muslim civil rights group, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is calling on state and federal law authorities to investigate the incident “as a hate crime and take all precautions to keep the Muslim family and the Muslim community safe”.
The incident took place on 19 May and is being described as racially motivated.
Police officers responded to a call regarding a disturbance between two women.
Witnesses told the police that “a woman who was very intoxicated had tried to drown a child and argued with the child’s mother”.
“Mrs. H, the mother, who wears hijab [Islamic headscarf] and modest swimwear, was watching her children in the shallow end of the pool when a white American woman entered the swimming pool area,” CAIR said in a press release on Friday.
“The alleged attacker reportedly approached the mother with racist interrogations then jumped into the swimming pool and grabbed the children to the deep end of the pool to allegedly drown them.”
The mother was able to pull her daughter from the water but she “had been yelling for help and was coughing up water.”
The mother’s headscarf was ripped off during the altercation.
The accused woman, identified as Elizabeth Wolf, 42, was approached by police officers and placed under arrest for public intoxication.
“We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids. My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here,” CAIR quoted the child’s mother say.
“My daughter is traumatised; whenever I open the apartment door, she runs away and hides, telling me she is afraid the lady will come and immerse her head in the water again.”
Wolf posted bail out of Tarrant Count Jail confirmed the local police department.
“The bond for the Attempted Capital Murder charge was $25,000. The bond for the Injury to a Child charge was $15,000,” Captain Brenda Alvarado told CNN.
Texas House of Representatives member Salman Bhojani said he was left “shocked” and “appalled” by the incident.
In October last year, a similar incident occurred where a 71-year-old man stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian boy to death.
These types of incidents have occurred frequently, shadowing Israel’s war on Gaza last year, in which at least 37,598 Palestinian have been killed.
