CRIME
DOJ Pursuing Hate Crime Charges After Landlord Kills Palestinian-American Boy, 6, And Severely Injures His Mother
Will County Sheriff
The U.S. Department of Justice is considering federal hate crime charges against 71-year-old Chicago-area landlord Joseph M. Czuba after he was arrested for allegedly stabbing a Palestinian-American mother and son on Saturday, killing the 6-year-old boy and severely injuring the woman.
According to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded Saturday morning to a residence in Plainfield Township after a woman called 911 to report her landlord was attacking her. When deputies arrived, they found Czuba sitting in the driveway. Inside, deputies found both victims stabbed numerous times, and they were transported to the hospital.
The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) identified the victims as 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin, and her son, Wadea Al-Fayoume.
According to the sheriff’s office, Shahin was stabbed more than a dozen times and was hospitalized in serious condition. Her son was pronounced dead at the hospital.
An autopsy was conducted Sunday, according to the sheriff’s office, and the forensic pathologist removed the knife from the boy’s abdomen at that time. He was found to have been stabbed 26 times, with a 12-inch serrated military style knife that has a seven-inch blade.
CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said in a statement Sunday that the senseless crime did not happen in a vacuum, and reiterated an earlier call for the media to balance its reporting on the conflict in Israel.
“[One-sided] statements issued by public officials and one-sided reporting by the media has [helped] create [a] lop-sided atmosphere in which members of our community are essentially sitting ducks, Rehab said in a statement on Oct. 11.
This is doubly concerning because we had come to believe that we had learned the hard lessons from the darkest days of flippant Islamophobia in the years after 9/11 where the lack of balanced leadership of our elected leaders, and the irresponsible and biased reporting by the media directly contributed to hanging our communities out to dry, Rehab said.
According to CAIR-Chicago, Shahin and her son had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years with no previous notable issues with the landlord.
CAIR-Chicago said text messages sent from Shahin to the boy’s father describe the attack, and said the landlord had been angered by news coverage of the crisis in Israel, and knocked on her door. When she opened, he tried to choke her and proceeded to attack her with a knife, yelling ‘you Muslims must die!’, the organization said.
Israel formally declared war on Oct. 8 after Hamas militants mounted a surprise incursion on Oct. 7, launching thousands of rockets into Israel to cover gunmen breaking through the Gaza border fence and violently taking control of multiple towns and villages, killing more than 1,300 men, women and children. In the days since, thousands of Palestinians have been killed and injured in the siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
President Joe Biden condemned the stabbings in a statement on Sunday.
Jill and I were shocked and sickened to learn of the brutal murder of a six-year-old child and the attempted murder of the childs mother in their home yesterday in Illinois, Biden said. As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department launched a hate crime investigation.
The Justice Department has opened a federal hate crimes investigation into the events leading to the tragic death of Wadea Al-Fayoume and the serious injuries suffered by his mother, Hanaan Shahin, Garland said. This incident cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in our country with regard to hate-fueled violence. The Department of Justice is focused on protecting the safety and the civil rights of every person in this country.
Czuba was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two hate crime counts, and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the sheriff’s office said.
TMX contributed to this article.
