Authorities say that an Illinois woman beat a man for wearing a Palestine hoodie at a Panera Bread in a suburb of Chicago over the weekend. She has been charged with hate crimes.
There are two counts of felony hate crimes and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct against 64-year-old Alexandra Szustakiewicz from Darien, Illinois. This was announced Monday by DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin and Downers Grove Police Chief Michael DeVries.
A judge agreed with the prosecutors on Monday that Szustakiewicz should not talk to the victims and should stay away from the Panera Bread in Downers Grove where the incident happened on Saturday around noon, the statement said.
Authorities say Szustakiewicz was at Panera Bread when she yelled at a guy about a sweatshirt he was wearing that said “Palestine.” More than that, it is said that Szustakiewicz tried to hit a woman with the man’s cell phone out of her hands when she started filming the event.
Monday, Szustakiewicz was in court with the help of the county public defender’s office. No one in the office could be found right away to give an opinion on her behalf.
The statement said that Szustakiewicz killed the people because of their “perceived national origin.”
Berlin said, “Everyone in society deserves to be treated with respect and courtesy, no matter their race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other trait that makes them unique.” “This kind of behavior and the bias that goes along with it have no place in a civilized society, and my office is ready to bring the right charges in these situations.”
Downers Grove police confirmed that the video shared on X was real and related to the charges against Szustakiewicz. In it, a woman lunges at someone who is recording the incident on their phone, while a man tries to stop her. As the woman tries to reach the person recording, the man hits her in the face at least once, and the drink she is holding spills on the ground when he does so.
The man keeps telling her to stop, and the woman says she will call the cops. She then tries to go after the person who is recording again.
On the tape, the man can be heard telling the woman, “Get away from my wife.”
The woman then goes up to the cash register and asks a worker to call the police, as seen on the tape.
The woman then walks toward the woman with the camera. The man then steps in between them and pushes the woman. The video shows that both the man and the woman say they are going to punch each other.
More than a million people have watched the film.
Szustakiewicz and her family members could not be reached right away for comment.
Another name for CAIR is the Chicago Office. In a statement, they said the attack started because one of the victims was wearing a Palestinian hoodie.
CAIR named the victim as a man named Waseem. He said in the statement, “I’m an American who was born and raised and took my wife out to lunch.” Just because I was Palestinian, I couldn’t do that.
The victim was a woman who was expecting, and CAIR said the behavior was “shameful” and “abusive.”
No one at Panera Bread could be reached right away for comment on Monday afternoon.
