The girl’s mother told police the suspect, Elizabeth Wolf, 42, “made racist comments, including that she wasn’t American,” and tried to grab both girls last month, the Euless Police Department said in a statement.
“The Euless Police Department believes this crime was committed out of bias or prejudice. The case has been presented to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office and that is part of the case,” Lt. Brenda Alvarado said in an email Monday. The DA’s office is investigating the incident, spokeswoman Anna Tinsley Williams said in an email.
Police responded to a report of a disturbance at an apartment complex pool in Euless, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb, on May 19.
According to a police statement, the 32-year-old mother told officers Wolf asked her where she was from and if the two children playing in the pool were hers. Wolf then grabbed her 6-year-old son, but police said “he broke his grip on his finger when he shook off his mother’s grip.”
“When the mother attempted to help her son, Wolf grabbed her 3-year-old daughter and pushed her into the water,” police said.
Police said the mother managed to pull her daughter out of the water, where she was “yelling for help and vomiting water,” and medics at the scene carried out medical examinations on both children.
Police said Wolf, who was initially arrested on suspicion of public intoxication, was also charged with injury to a child for allegedly injuring the girl’s 6-year-old brother. Wolf could not be reached for comment and it was unclear whether he had an attorney representing him.
The incident occurred while the girl’s mother was wearing a hijab and modest swimsuit, CAIR Texas said in a press conference Saturday.
In a statement shared by CAIR, her mother said: “We are American citizens of Palestinian origin and we don’t know where we can feel safe with our children,” she said, adding that she and her family are “facing hatred here” amid Israel’s war on Gaza.
“My daughter is traumatized,” she said.
Following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, reports of threats and incidents of bigotry against Muslims and Jews have spiked across the United States, human rights groups have reported. Federal statistics show hate crimes against both groups have been on the rise since before the war, but it was not immediately clear whether the Euless incident had any connection to the Middle East conflict.
“Here, prejudice reaches a new level as some people deeply believe they have the right to decide which children deserve to continue living and which don’t, based on their religion, the language they speak or the country they come from,” Shaimah Zayan, operations manager for CAIR Austin, said in a statement.
Texas Congressman Salman Bhojani (Democrat), whose district includes Euless, said in a statement, “There is no place for hatred in the city of Euless, the 92nd Congressional District or anywhere in this great state. I thank the Euless Police Department for their swift arrest of the alleged provocateur and my thoughts go out to the families affected.”
