A woman has been charged with attempted murder after she was accused of trying to drown a three-year-old girl in an alleged racist attack.
Witness described Elizabeth Wolf as “very intoxicated” when she allegedly tried to drown the child in a swimming pool following a row with her Palestinian mother, police said.
The 42-year-old was first arrested in May at an apartment complex pool in Euless in the US state of Texas for public intoxication.
After a police investigation, she has now been charged with attempted murder and injury to a child.
The Texas chapter of civil rights group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Texas) claimed that Wolf “interrogated” the child’s mother.
CAIR-Texas said the mother was wearing a hijab and speaking to her children in a foreign language when Wolf approached her.
Police said that after questioning the woman, Wolf allegedly tried to grab her six-year-old son and he was able to escape but suffered a cut to his finger.
As the woman helped her son, Wolf allegedly grabbed the woman’s three-year-old daughter and forced her underwater.
CAIR-Texas said that with the help of a nearby witness, the mother was able to pull her daughter to safety before emergency services arrived.
It has called on authorities to investigate the incident as a hate crime.
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The group quoted the girl’s mother as saying: “We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids.
“My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here.
“My daughter is traumatised; 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.”
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Texas state representative Salman Bhojani said: “I’m shocked and appalled by this alleged racist, Islamophobic occurrence that took place in my town.
“Hate has no place in Euless, District 92, or anywhere in our great state.”