A Texas woman in her 40s, Elizabeth Wolf, has been given a five-year jail term after she tried drowning a 3-year-old girl of Palestinian-American origin at a swimming pool in Euless in May 2024. The attack police termed racist. Judge Andy Porter made the ruling and came after Wolf pleaded guilty to attempted murder and injury to a child, which CBS News reported were the same documents filed by the Corpus Christi Caller Times in his appeal.
Attack Unfolds at Apartment Pool
The attack was on May 19, 2024, at an apartment complex pool where the girl was accompanied by her mother, who was wearing a hijab and a cover-up swimsuit, and her 6-year-old brother. Wolf went up to the family and asked them where they were from before he made comments about them not being American, police reports stated.
“While the mother was attending to him, she picked up a three-year-old daughter and pulled that daughter further into the pool and submerged the three-year-old daughter,” Captain Brenda Alvarado explained how Wolf tried to drown the child.
Paramedics cleared the two kids medically after bystanders rescued them as the mother yanked the kids from the water. Wolf is facing a charge of also tearing off the mother’s headscarf during the attack.
Rising Pattern of Anti-Muslim Violence
The case caused a wave of criticism across the United States, even from former President Joe Biden. The scenario occurred at a time when there was a clearly established rise in hatred against Muslims in the US. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stated that it received 8,658 complaints of discrimination in the current year, breaking the record, which represents a 70% increase from the previous year and the highest figure since the organization began monitoring the trend in 1996.
“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,” the child’s mother told CAIR.
Broader Context of Hate Incidents
After the attack by Hamas in October 2023, human rights organizers have identified that the firing by Israel on Gaza has increased threats to Muslims, Arabs, and Jews in the United States. Recently, bias-motivated incidents, alongside the killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy by stabbing in Illinois and the stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas, have also been mentioned, such as the violent assault on pro-Palestinian protesters in California.
The FBI in 2024 communicated 11,679 hate crime cases, which is the second-highest figure the agency has ever recorded, and over half of these cases were racially or racism-based attacks. The most targeted group in 2024 was Black Americans, while Jewish Americans and gay men were the next in line.