TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — A woman has been indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury after allegedly attempting to drown a Palestinian mother’s 3-year-old daughter at an apartment pool in North Texas earlier this year.
The incident took place in the Dallas suburb of Euless on May 19. Police say Elizabeth Wolf, 42, was “very intoxicated” and argued with a mother who was at the pool with her 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.
The children’s mother wears a hijab and has said she and her family are Palestinians who became American citizens. Police said she told officers that Wolf accused her of not being American and made other racial statements.
According to the children's mother, Wolf had asked her where she was from then tried to grab the woman’s son before getting her daughter and forcing her underwater.
Wolf was initially released on a $40,000 bond after being charged with attempted capital murder and injury to a child. Her bond was increased to $1 million in July and she remains jailed in Tarrant County, jail records show.
Euless police have requested that Tarrant County prosecutors treat the case as a hate crime.
The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-TX) welcomed the indictment in a statement on Tuesday.
“We welcome the indictment of the suspected perpetrator of this horrific crime. Any crime against a child must be treated with the utmost seriousness and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We stand in solidarity with the family and pray that God grants them solace and justice,” CAIR-Dallas Fort Worth Executive Director Mustafaa Carroll said.
According to hate crime data released by CAIR, the organization received 3,578 complaints between October and December 2023, which include anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents. The complaints were a 178% increase from 2022.