DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. (AP) — Authorities and a Palestinian man have accused a suburban Chicago woman of committing hate crimes after she reportedly confronted a guy wearing a sweatshirt with the word Palestine emblazoned on it and attempted to take his pregnant wife’s smartphone away as she was recording the interaction.
Alexandra Szustakiewicz, 64, showed up in court on Monday to be arraigned on a minor disorderly conduct charge and two felony hate crime accusations. The woman from Darien, Illinois, was ordered by a DuPage County judge to avoid contact with the victims and to avoid the restaurant where the altercation allegedly took place on Saturday, according to the police. The next court date for Szustakiewicz is December 16.
Kendall Pietrzak, her public defender, did not immediately respond to a message left on Tuesday asking for comment on the accusations.
According to a news release issued Monday by the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office and Downers Grove police, Szustakiewicz was at a Panera Bread restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove on Saturday when she confronted and yelled obscenities at a man about a sweatshirt he was wearing that had the word Palestine written on it.
According to the report, she also allegedly tried to strike a woman who was with the man when she started recording the event on film.
According to a complaint, Szustakiewicz, who was taken into custody on Sunday, perpetrated a hate crime because of the two victims’ alleged national origin.
Robert Berlin, the state attorney for DuPage County, stated in a statement that such conduct and the prejudice that goes along with it are unacceptable in a civilized society.
According to the Palestinian man Szustakiewicz is accused of approaching, he was wearing a hoodie that read “Palestine” when she came up to him and swore at him while attempting to strike his pregnant wife, whom he protected as she used her phone to record Szustakiewicz.
Waseem Zahran told the Chicago Sun-Times that he had experienced harassment for wearing the sweatshirt before and that he anticipates more harassment in the future. He claimed that because his family is Palestinian, they have long been the target of threats and harassment.
I have witnessed my mother being threatened, parents being screamed at, and cousins being yelled at since I was a young child. However, Zahran told the newspaper that it was the first time she had been attacked.
He claimed that despite Szustakiewicz reportedly hitting him in the face and trying to throw hot coffee on his wife before and after striking at her several times, he made several attempts to defuse the situation.
Zahran claimed that even after telling his wife she was pregnant, Szustakiewicz kept swinging at her.
He said, “I don’t care,” to which she replied.
He brought his wife out to lunch and claimed to be an American by birth, according to a statement released Monday by the Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Just because I was Palestinian, I couldn’t do it.
In the statement, Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, denounced the attack.
According to Rehab, we have long witnessed how European migrants, like this woman, have an odd sense of entitlement to routinely harass and assault native Palestinians in their historical country, knowing that they are completely unaccountable and that their victims have no legal protection.
Now, in their new homeland—here in America, where they were born and raised—that same anti-Palestinian prejudice has followed them, which is astonishing but not surprising.
The Associated Press, 2024. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. It is prohibited to publish, broadcast, rewrite, or redistribute this content without authorization.
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