A Texas woman was arrested after she allegedly attempted to drown a 3-year-old Palestinian Muslim child in an apartment complex pool last month after questioning the child’s mother about their country of origin, according to officials.
Police responded to the apartment complex pool in Euless on May 19 around 5:44 p.m. regarding “a disturbance between two women,” according to a news release from the Euless Police Department.
“Upon arrival, officers were told by witnesses that a woman who was very intoxicated had tried to drown a child and argued with the child’s mother,” police said.
The child’s mother, 32, told police that the suspect, identified as Elizabeth Wolf, 42, questioned where she was from and made statements about her not being American, as well as “other racial statements.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said in a news release that the mother visibly appeared to be Muslim, as she was wearing a hijab and modest swimwear.
Wolf also asked the woman whether two of the children in the pool were hers before she tried to grab one of them, a 6-year-old boy, who was able to get away, police alleged.
“The mother began helping her son when Wolf grabbed her 3-year-old daughter and forced her underwater,” police said. “The mother was able to pull her daughter from the water. Her daughter had been yelling for help and was coughing up water.”
CAIR alleged that Wolf also snatched the mother’s headscarf off while she tried to save her daughter and beat her with it.
Both children were “medically cleared” at the scene, police said.
Wolf was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication as she tried to leave the scene. She was charged with attempted capital murder and injury to a child. Police don’t believe that Wolf and the victim’s mother knew each other before the May 19 incident.
CAIR said the mother, whom it identified as “Mrs. H.,” said her daughter is traumatized by the incident and hides whenever she opens their apartment door out of fear that Wolf “will come and immerse her head in the water again.”
“We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” CAIR quoted her as saying. “My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here.”
CAIR’s Texas branch called on federal and state authorities to investigate the incident as a hate crime. Euless police have recommended that the incident be considered a hate crime, and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office is investigating it, a police spokesperson told NBC News.
Shaimaa Zayan, CAIR’s Austin operations manager, said, “We are seeing a new level of bigotry here where a person deeply believes they get to decide, based on religion, spoken language and country of origin, whose kids deserve to stay alive and whose don’t.”
In April, CAIR reported receiving 8,061 complaints nationally last year from Muslims who reported experiencing discrimination or hate incidents. It’s the most the group has ever gotten at any point in its 30-year history, including after 9/11. The council also reported receiving 3,578 complaints during the last three months last year.
State Rep. Salman Bhojani, a Democrat who represents the area in the Texas House, said he was “shocked and appalled” by the alleged racist incident.
“Hate has no place in Euless, District 92, or anywhere in our great state,” Bhojani said.
It’s not clear whether Wolf has an attorney. (NBC)