Police said the victims were targeted by the suspect because they were Muslim and Palestinian.
An Illinois man stabbed and killed a Muslim child 26 times, while seriously injuring his mother, police said, while chanting anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian slogans.
Police charged the 71-year-old man with a hate crime against the 6-year-old boy and his 32-year-old mother, saying the victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith, in the context of Israel’s war on Palestinians.
The Weil County Sheriff said in a statement posted on social media that investigators have been able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect because of their being Muslim and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Hamas and the Israelis.
Officers found the victims late Saturday morning at a home in the town of Plainfield, about 65 kilometers southwest of Chicago.
The sheriff’s office said the boy, who was pronounced dead in hospital, was stabbed 26 times with a large military knife, an autopsy said Sunday.
The woman suffered more than 12 stab wounds to her body and remained in hospital on Sunday, but her condition is stable.
The suspect reportedly shouted “you Muslims, you must die” before the stabbing, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Kerr also said that the two victims had been living on the ground floor of the house for two years, and that the suspect was the owner of the house.
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Police said the man suspected of committing the crime on Saturday was found sitting outside on the floor near the corridor with a wound to his forehead, before police placed him in custody pending a court appearance.
The man was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crimes and aggravated battery with a lethal weapon.
Authorities have not released the names of the deceased, but the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations planned to hold a news conference on Sunday with a family member that identified the victims, Wadih Fayoum, a Palestinian-American boy, and his mother, Hanan Shaheen.
CAIR called the crime “our worst nightmare,” calling for an end to anti-Islamic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric among American politicians and in the media.
(AJA, PC)
We can thank, POTATUS: Potato POTUS Joe Biden for lying about beheaded babies on live tv, for the murder of this innocent 6 year old Palestinian-AMERICAN boy.