Texas woman tried to drown 3-year-old in possible hate crime, police say

A lone demonstrator waves the Palestinian flag outside the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo / AP

A Texas woman has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly tried to drown a 3-year-old girl in a swimming pool, police said, adding that they are recommending the incident be treated as a hate crime.

The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, identified the girl as a Muslim of Palestinian origin and the woman as a white American as it called for investigators to open a hate-crime probe amid a broader increase in reports of anti-Muslim incidents across the United States. Police did not name the mother or her children or provide information about their identities, but said the mother told the woman she was from Jordan.

The girl’s mother told police that the suspect, Elizabeth Wolf, 42, “made statements about her not being an American and other racial statements” and that she tried to grab both of her children last month, the Euless Police Department said in a statement.

“The Euless Police Department believes the crime was committed because of bias or prejudice and that is part of the case as it has been filed with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office,” Captain Brenda Alvarado said in an email on Monday. The attorney’s office is reviewing the case, spokeswoman Anna Tinsley Williams said in an email.

Police responded to reports of a disturbance at an apartment complex’s pool in Euless, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth, on May 19.

The mother, 32, told officers that Wolf was questioning where she was from and whether the two children playing at the pool were hers, the police said in a statement. Wolf then grabbed her 6-year-old son, the mother told officers, but police said “he pulled away from her grasp which caused a scratch on his finger”.

“The mother began helping her son when Wolf grabbed her 3-year-old daughter and forced her underwater,” police said.

The mother managed to pull her daughter from the water, police said, adding that the daughter “had been yelling for help and was coughing up water”. Both children were medically cleared by medics at the scene, they added.

Wolf, who was initially arrested on a charge of public intoxication, was also charged with injury to a child for allegedly hurting the girl’s 6-year-old brother, police said. Wolf could not immediately be reached for comment, and it was not clear if she was represented by a lawyer.

In a news conference Saturday, CAIR’s Texas chapter said the incident took place while the girl’s mother was wearing a hijab and modest swimwear.

In a statement shared by CAIR, the mother said, “We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” adding that amid Israel’s war in Gaza, she and her family were “facing that hate here”.

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Khan Younis, Gaza. Photo / AP

“My daughter is traumatised,” she said.

Reports of threats or incidents of prejudice against Muslims and Jews spiked across the United States after Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, rights groups have said, though federal statistics show that hate crimes against both groups had been on the rise before the war. It was not immediately clear whether the Euless incident was related in any way to the Middle East conflict.

“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,” Shaimaa Zayan, CAIR-Austin operations manager, said in a statement.

Texas State Representative Salman Bhojani, whose district includes the city of Euless, said in a statement: “Hate has no place in Euless, District 92, or anywhere in our great state. I want to thank Euless PD for quickly apprehending the alleged provocateur, and I extend my service to the affected family.”