DOWNERS GROVE, Illinois: A suburban Chicago woman faces hate crime charges for allegedly confronting a Palestinian man wearing a sweatshirt with “Palestine” written on it and trying to knock a cellphone out of his pregnant wife’s hands as she recorded the encounter, authorities and the man said.
Alexandra Szustakiewicz, 64, appeared in court Monday for her arraignment on two felony hate crime counts and a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. A DuPage County judge ordered the Darien, Illinois, woman to have no contact with the victims and to stay away from the restaurant where police said the confrontation occurred Saturday. Szustakiewicz’s next court hearing is set for Dec. 16.
A message left Tuesday for her public defender, Kendall Pietrzak, seeking comment on the charges was not immediately returned.
Szustakiewicz was at a Panera Bread restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove on Saturday “when she confronted and yelled expletives at a man regarding a sweatshirt he was wearing with the word Palestine written on it,” according to a news release sent Monday by the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office and Downers Grove police.
She also allegedly “attempted to hit a cell phone out of the hands of a woman who was with the man when the woman began videotaping the incident,” it adds.
A complaint filed against Szustakiewicz, who was arrested Sunday, alleges that she “committed a hate crime by reason of perceived national origin” of the two victims.
DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement that “this type of behavior and the accompanying prejudice have no place in a civilized society.”
The Palestinian man Szustakiewicz is accused of confronting said he was wearing a hoodie with the word “Palestine” on it when she approached him and yelled expletives at him while trying to hit his pregnant wife, whom he shielded as she filmed Szustakiewicz with her cellphone.
Waseem Zahran told the Chicago Sun-Times it was not the first time he has been harassed for wearing the sweatshirt, and he expects it won’t be the last time. He said his family has long faced harassment and threats for being Palestinian.
“Since I was a child, I’ve seen my mom threatened, parents screamed at, cousins yelled at. But it was a first for me to be attacked,” Zahran told the newspaper.
He said he tried to deescalate the situation multiple times, even after Szustakiewicz allegedly hit him in the face and attempted to throw hot coffee on his wife before and after swinging at her multiple times.
Zahran said Szustakiewicz continued swinging at his wife even after he told her she was pregnant.
“I don’t care,” he said she replied.
He said in a statement sent Monday by the Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations that he is “a born and raised American who took his wife out for lunch. I was not able to do that simply because I was Palestinian.”
CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab condemned the attack in the statement.
“We have long seen how European migrants like this woman feel a bizarre sense of entitlement to regularly harass and accost native Palestinians in their ancestral homeland, knowing they enjoy full impunity and knowing their victims have no recourse,” Rehab said.
“Now, shockingly but not surprisingly, that same anti-Palestinian hatred has followed them into their new homeland, here in America, where they were born and raised.”
