Texas Woman Accused Of Trying To Drown Muslim Child In Racist Attack

A Muslim advocacy group on Friday called for a hate crime investigation after a Texas woman allegedly tried to drown a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in a swimming pool.

Elizabeth Wolf, described by the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a “White American woman,” was arrested May 19 and initially charged with public intoxication, according to a press release from police in Euless.

The 42-year-old was later charged with attempted capital murder and injury to a child.

According to CAIR, the incident began when the 3-year-old’s mother, who wears a hijab, was at the pool with her Muslim family. Wolf approached the 32-year-old, identified only as “Mrs. H,” with “racist interrogations,” CAIR said.

Wolf asked where the mother was from and if two kids playing in the pool were hers, according to police who spoke with the mother. The mother said that Wolf “made statements about her not being an American and other racial statements,” per authorities.

At one point, Wolf jumped into the pool to pull Mrs. H’s daughter and 6-year-old son into the deep end, CAIR said. The boy managed to pull away, but Wolf then allegedly attempted to force the 3-year-old underwater.

When Mrs. H tried to rescue her daughter, Wolf “snatched off the mother’s head scarf and used it to beat the mother as well as kicking her to keep her away while forcing her daughter’s head underwater,” CAIR said.

When Wolf was finally taken into custody by officers, she allegedly shouted to a bystander who was comforting the mother, “Tell her I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family.”

Witnesses told officers that Wolf appeared intoxicated at the time of the incident. Mrs. H’s two children were medically evaluated and cleared after the ordeal, police said.

“We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” the mother said in a statement provided by CAIR. “My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here.”

Mrs. H said that her daughter remains 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,” Mrs. H said.

Wolf was released on bail a day after her arrest last month, according to CAIR’s Shaimaa Zayan. The organization now seeks not only a hate crime probe, but a higher bail bond and a dialogue with officials about “Islamophobia, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian sentiment,” Zayan 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,” Zayan said.

CAIR published a report earlier this year stating that it received 8,061 complaints about anti-Muslim incidents across the U.S. in 2023, citing the recent escalation of violence in Israel and Gaza as a driving force behind the figure.