Police have asked prosecutors to treat an attack on a Texas family as a hate crime after a white woman allegedly made racist comments toward a woman and then tried to drown her 3-year-old child.
Elizabeth Wolf, 42, has already been charged with attempted capital murder and injury to a child for her alleged role in a near-fatal encounter with a Muslim family in suburban Dallas.
According to a release from the Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the attack happened on May 19 at an apartment complex.
A woman referred to as Mrs. H in the release told CAIR that she and her two children were visiting the swimming pool at the complex when Wolf approached her. Mrs. H was wearing a hijab and modest swimwear and watching her kids playing in the shallow end of the pool.
Wolf reportedly started interrogating Mrs. H about where she was from and whether the two children were hers, according to CAIR and Euless police.
After making some racist remarks, she jumped into the pool, grabbed Mrs. H’s children, and pulled them into the deep end, police say. Mrs. H jumped in after them.
Her 6-year-old son broke free from Wolf’s grip but wound up with a scratch on his finger while trying to escape. As the mom tried to save her 3-year-old daughter, Wolf allegedly snatched her hijab off her head and beat her with it to keep her away as she forced the child’s head underwater.
One resident told Fox4 that the mother was yelling for help from other people at the pool.
“She was like, help me! She’s killing my baby, she’s killing my baby!” Emma Aziz recalled. “It was crazy, you know I was shaking, my son was there. Everybody was like really, really terrified.”
As one person called 911, a Black man at the pool helped rescue the child, who was yelling for help and coughing up water.
Wolf was arrested at the scene. As she was being escorted away, she reportedly yelled at a bystander who was attending to Mrs. H, “Tell her I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family.”
Medics evaluated both children, and their physical conditions were cleared.
Witnesses told police that Wolf was drunk when she attacked the family. Wolf was initially charged with public intoxication before law enforcement tacked on the extra charges, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Mrs. H and her family are American citizens who are originally from Palestine.
“My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here,” Mrs. H told CAIR. “My daughter is traumatized; 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.”
Data gathered by CAIR revealed more than 3,500 complaints documenting instances of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate were sent to the organization during the last three months of 2023 as Israel’s ongoing military campaign against Palestine intensified. CAIR reported the number of complaints represented a 178 percent increase compared to the complaints the civil rights group received during the last three months of 2022.
Wolf was given bonds of $25,000 for the attempted capital murder charge and $15,000 for the injury to a child charge, Euless Police Capt. Brenda Alvarado said to CNN. She made bail, and CAIR is calling for her bond to be increased.
