A woman in Texas has been formally indicted by a grand jury for the attempted drowning of a three-year-old Palestinian American girl earlier this year, in what authorities believe was a racially motivated attack.
The suspect, Elizabeth Wolf, 42, was indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury last month on charges that include a hate crime enhancement, according to court documents revealed on Tuesday.
Wolf faces charges of attempted capital murder of a person under 10 years of age and intentionally causing bodily injury to a child. The inclusion of the hate crime enhancement could result in a harsher sentence if she is convicted.
The incident occurred in May at a swimming pool in an apartment complex in Euless, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth.
According to a police report, Wolf approached the mother of the three-year-old girl, who was at the pool with her six-year-old son and inquired about their origins. She then attempted to drown the three-year-old and also tried to grab the six-year-old boy.
The mother was able to rescue her daughter from the water, and local medics who arrived on the scene confirmed that both children were unharmed.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Texas) reported earlier this year that Wolf approached the mother with “racist interrogations” before seizing the children, who were in the shallow end of the pool, and dragging them into the deep end in what was described as an attempted drowning.
Human rights organizations have raised alarms about increasing threats against Palestinian Americans, Muslims, Arabs, and Jews since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.
In late November, three Palestinian men in their early 20s were shot near a university campus in Vermont, injuring all three. A month prior, a six-year-old Palestinian American boy was fatally stabbed in Illinois.
The police charged a 71-year-old man with murder and a hate crime for killing the child and seriously injuring his mother, reportedly motivated by the war in Gaza and their religion.
I am an experienced writer, analyst, and author. My exposure in English journalism spans more than 28 years. In the past, I have been working with daily The Muslim (Lahore Bureau), daily Business Recorder (Lahore/Islamabad Bureaus), Daily Times, Islamabad, daily The Nation (Lahore and Karachi). With daily The Nation, I have served as Resident Editor, Karachi. Since 2009, I have been working as a Freelance Writer/Editor for American organizations.
