Background: The apartment complex in Euless, Texas, where Elizabeth Wolf allegedly tried to drown two Muslim children in May 2024. (YouTube/KTVT). Inset: Elizabeth Wolf (Euless Police Department).
After allegedly making racist remarks to a child’s mother, a Texas woman is accused of attempting to drown a 3-year-old Muslim girl in an apartment complex swimming pool, prompting an attempted capital murder charge and demands for the opening of a hate crime investigation.
Elizabeth Wolf, 42, of Euless, Texas, allegedly accosted a Palestinian-American family on May 19. Police said they responded to a disturbance call at the apartment building about a potentially intoxicated woman who was yelling and attempting to drown a child. Wolf was stopped when she tried to leave the area. She was arrested for public intoxication, court records show.
The child’s mother was wearing a hijab, or an Islamic headscarf, as well as “modest swimwear,” according to a statement from Mustafaa Carroll, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Texas chapter.
Wolf allegedly “approached the mother with racist interrogations,” peppering the mother with questions about her country of origin as well as the language she spoke to her 3-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son, CAIR said. She then allegedly jumped into the pool and grabbed the children in an apparent attempt to pull them into the deep end. Wolf only scratched the boy as fought to slip from her grasp, police said, but Wolf kept hold of the young girl and tried to hold her underwater.
According to a statement the family provided to CAIR, the mother told police that Wolf also ripped her headscarf off and beat her with it.
The mother — identified by CAIR only as “Mrs. H” — told authorities Wolf kicked at her too as she tried to save her child.
A man helped rescue the girl as other witnesses looked on, according to CAIR. Once police showed up and Wolf was cuffed, Wolf allegedly screamed to a bystander who was trying to console the shaken-up mother.
“Tell her I will kill her, and I will kill her whole family,” Wolf allegedly said.
A witness who was at the pool that same day with her 7-year-old was interviewed by local Fox affiliate KDFW after Wolf’s arrest. The witness, Emma Aziz, said she heard the mother of the 3-year-old screaming as she watched Wolf plunge the child’s head underwater.
“That was like 10 seconds but it felt like forever,” Aziz said.
“She was like, ‘Help me! She’s killing my baby, she’s killing my baby!'” Aziz recalled the mother saying.
Police said both children were assessed for injuries, cleared and released from an area hospital.
Wolf was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication and later charged with attempted capital murder and injury to a child. She was detained and released on bail within a day of the incident. Police said the bail for the attempted capital murder charge was $25,000 and the bail for the injury to a child charge was $15,000.
A spokesperson for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to Law&Crime on Monday that its office has received the case and is reviewing it.
Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The mother of the children released a statement through CAIR and it was read by the organization’s executive director during a press conference held this weekend. Carroll called for a hate crime probe, a higher bail bond and “an open conversation with officials” to address what he says is an uptick in “Islamophobia.”
The mother did not attend the press conference out of fear for her and her family’s safety but in a statement said:
We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids. My country is facing a war, and we are facing that hate here. My daughter is traumatized; whenever I open the apartment door, she runs away and hides, telling me she is afraid the lady will come and immerse her head in the water again. Also, my husband’s employment is jeopardized, due to having to leave work to accompany me and our four kids whenever we have appointments and errands to run.
Texas state representative Salman Bhojani — who is himself of Pakistani dissent — weighed in this weekend, saying he was “shocked and appalled.”
“Hate has no place in Euless, District 92, or anywhere in our great state,” Bhojani said.
Taha Taha, an criminal lawyer assisting the family, said this weekend that “every person has the right to feel safe and protected in their community.”
“Our politicians and leaders must be careful when they address the media about foreign affairs to prevent acts of hatred that can only be attributed to Islamophobia and ignorance,” Taha said.
Police in Euless said they are considering the incident a hate crime and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office is investigating it.
“We are seeing a new level of bigotry here where a person deeply believes they get to decide, based on religion, spoken language, and country of origin, whose kids deserve to stay alive and whose don’t,” CAIR operations manager Shaimaa Zayan said this weekend.
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