68-year-old punches Palestinian neighbor during fight over garbage, Illinois cops say
A 68-year-old man faces a hate crime charge after he was accused of assaulting his Palestinian neighbor, Illinois police said.
The fight started at about 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 3, when a Palestinian man moved his garbage cans in a communal driveway, according to a Village of Orland Park news release. The move initially spurred insults from a neighbor, who became increasingly violent, according to police.
The neighbor made “hateful comments” about the man’s Palestinian national origin and punched the man in the face, police said.
Seeing the altercation, the man’s wife came out to try to de-escalate the situation, police said. The neighbor then made more disparaging comments related to the woman’s Palestinian ethnicity and stepped toward her, police said.
The woman’s husband put himself between her and the neighbor, who hit the Palestinian man in the face again, according to police. The attack pushed the man back on top of his wife, police said.
The 68-year-old was arrested on two counts of misdemeanor battery and a felony hate crime charge.
“We welcome the hate crime charge in this case as an indication that anti-Palestinian attacks will be taken seriously by law enforcement authorities and the alleged perpetrators will face justice,” said Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago executive director Ahmed Rehab in a statement.
The man appeared in the Bridgeview Courthouse Jan. 4, where he was released from custody, ABC 7 Chicago reported.
Orland Park is about 25 miles southwest of Chicago.
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