A woman in Texas was charged with attempted capital murder after she tried to drown a 3-year-old girl in an apartment complex pool after making racist comments, officials said.

Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said at a news conference Saturday that the girl was attacked by a white woman who made the comments to the girl’s mother, who was wearing a hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women.

Carroll called on national and state law enforcement officials to open a hate crime investigation into the attack, which took place on May 19 in Euless, Texas, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth.

Witnesses told detectives that the woman, Elizabeth Wolf, 42, had tried to drown a child and had argued with the child’s mother, the Euless Police Department said in a news release.

Wolf was initially charged with public intoxication as she tried to leave the area, police said. The Tarrant County criminal district attorney’s office filed charges of attempted capital murder and injury to a child on May 23, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

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Wolf could not be immediately reached for comment Sunday, and it was not clear whether she had a lawyer. She was released on bail a day after she was arrested, according to CAIR-Texas.

The child’s mother, who has not been publicly identified, told police that Wolf had made comments about her not being an American and other racist statements before the attack.

She said Wolf had also tried to grab her 6-year-old son, but he pulled away, causing a scratch on his finger, police said. The girl had been coughing up water and yelling for help in the pool, police said. Medics evaluated both children and were medically cleared, police said.

At the news conference Saturday, Carroll said the Council on American-Islamic Relations was referring to the mother as Mrs. H, because she did not want to be publicly identified.

“We are American citizens, originally from Palestine, and I don’t know where to go to feel safe with my kids,” the mother said in a statement.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Amanda Holpuch/Art
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