President Biden on Monday weighed in after a 42-year-old Texas woman was accused of trying to drown a Palestinian-American girl at a swimming pool.
The president said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was “deeply disturbed” by reports of the attack.
“No child should ever be subjected to a violent attack, and my heart goes out to the family,” he said.
The incident took place on May 19 in Euless, a Dallas suburb, and has prompted calls from the local chapter of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, for a hate crime investigation. The girl and her family are Muslim, and they were confronted while her mother was wearing a hijab, CAIR said.
According to Euless police, the 3-year-old girl was playing at the pool with her 6-year-old brother and mother when they were confronted by 42-year-old Elizabeth Wolf.
The girl’s mother told police that Wolf asked where she was from and if the children were hers before grabbing the boy. He pulled away, then Wolf grabbed the 3-year-old and forced her underwater, authorities said.
Her mother pulled her from the water, and both children were evaluated and cleared by medics, authorities said. Wolf was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication and later charged with attempted capital murder and injury to a child.
“The mother of the two children stated that Wolf made statements about her not being an American and other racial statements,” police said.
According to CAIR, as Wolf was being arrested, she allegedly shouted to a bystander who was comforting the mother, “Tell her I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family.”
In a statement provided by CAIR, the mother said her daughter remains traumatized.
“We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” she said in the statement. “My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here.”
