A boy was killed and a woman critically injured when they were stabbed by a man who targeted them because they were Muslim in southwest suburban Plainfield Township, police said.
The woman, 32, called 911 Saturday morning and told dispatchers that her landlord was attacking her with a knife, the Will County Sheriff’s Department said. Police found the woman and the boy, 6, with multiple stab wounds — the boy had 26 stab wounds, according to an autopsy.
They were transported to a nearby hospital, where the boy was pronounced dead. The woman was in serious condition, according to Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago,
Police found the suspect, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, outside the residence and took him into custody. Czuba was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Authorities say a mother and her 6-year-old son were stabbed in a home in the 16000 block of South Lincoln Highway in Plainfield on Saturday. The suspect, Joseph Czuba, 71, was arrested at the scene.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Authorities said both victims were attacked because of their religion and the war in Israel.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the sheriff’s department said.
CAIR identified the boy as Wadea Al-Fayoume, and his mother as Hanaan Shahin. The organization held a press conference Sunday afternoon with the boy’s father, uncle and other family members
Joseph Czuba, 71, of Plainfield, was charged with a hate crime in the stabbing death of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume. He allegedly targeted the boy and his mother because they were Muslim.
Will County Sheriff’s Department
The mother and child were both Palestinian American, Rehab said. The mother has been in the U.S. for 12 years, and the boy was born in the country. He had just celebrated his 6th birthday Oct. 6.
Rehab said the boy loved basketball, soccer and “anything with a ball.” He liked playing on the swings and coloring.
“He loved his family and friends, he loved life,” Rehab said.
Rehab said he viewed text messages from the boy’s mother to the boy’s father saying that Czuba knocked on their door Saturday morning and attacked her and made anti-Muslim statements. The texts said she went into the bathroom, dialed 911, and when she came out, she found her son with multiple stab wounds, Rehab said.
“It all happened in seconds,” she texted. Police did not immediately confirm the details from the text messages.
Rehab said Czuba had built a treehouse for the child and the family had no previous problems with him.
“I ask you, what level of hate, blind hatred, could cause such an act?” Rehab asked at a news conference Sunday afternoon.
The crime comes as tensions in Gaza have escalated following an attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas and retaliatory airstrikes that have killed thousands of people.
Rehab said harmful and “one-sided” rhetoric from the media has intensified prejudice and led to violence.
Yousef Hannon, the boy’s uncle and a former Chicago Public Schools teacher, decried the anti-Islamic attitudes since last week’s attack: “It hurts me every day.”
Hannon said his family members living in Gaza are facing power outages and food and water shortages under the Israeli occupation.
“This picture has to be changed,” he said. “I was talking to my family in Gaza. I don’t know what’s happening to them now. My last communication was three days ago.”
State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid (21st), who attended the press conference, said: “It really breaks my heart to have to be here today to mourn the death of a 6-year-old boy. This was directly connected to the dehumanization of Palestinians. … I know there’s gonna be people who say we condemn this heinous crime, who say hate has no home here. That is not enough.
“If we want to see these attacks stopped here in Illinois and all over the country … we have to call out not just this heinous crime and others that may occur but call for a cease fire, deescalation and peace.”
Protests and vigils in support of both Palestinians and Israelis have been held across the city in recent days.
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Landlord charged with hate crime, murder in stabbing that left Muslim boy dead, mother wounded in Chicago suburb - Chicago Sun-Times
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