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Police data show Chicago’s West Ridge has become a hotbed of anti-Jewish hate crimes
Anti-Jewish hate crimes rose sharply in Chicago this year, with 70 documented incidents, a 46% increase over last year’s high of 48, with two months left to go in 2024.
According to a CBS News Data Team analysis of Chicago Police hate crimes data, the West Ridge community has recorded a dozen anti-Jewish hate crimes so far this year, including two assaults, a bomb threat, and vandalism to property and a car.
West Ridge was shaken after a 39-year-old Jewish man was shot in the shoulder on Saturday. The suspect in that shooting, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, 22, allegedly opened fire on police and paramedics before being critically shot by police.
Abdallahi was charged with six counts of attempted first-degree murder, seven counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, and aggravated battery.
At least one Chicago alderman has called for hate crime charges to be filed. Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling didn’t rule out the possibility of additional charges on Monday, but said the investigation is continuing.
So far this year, Chicago saw dozens of reported anti-Jewish hate crimes, including 16 criminal defacements, four bomb threats, two incidents of vandalism to institutions, including a place of worship and a school, four incidents of damage to cars, according to an analysis of police data.
An audit by the Anti-Defamation League showed an increase in antisemitic incidents in Illinois last year, up 74% from 2022. Earlier this month, an anti-Israel message appeared on a digital billboard in suburban Northbrook.
The rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes in Chicago preceded the Israeli-Gaza conflict that started after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, increasing from eight to 37 incidents in 2022, and again in 2023 with 48 incidents.
Chicago police hate crimes data is only readily available going back to 2012.
Meanwhile, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim crimes also rose last year to 20 incidents, up from eight in 2022. So far this year, there were 11 anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes confirmed by the police department, including the vandalization of a Palestinian café last Friday.
Joe Exotic, made famous in the Netflix series “Tiger King” and currently serving time in federal prison, says he is engaged to a fellow inmate in Texas and hopes to get married.
Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado, is currently incarcerated at Federal Medical Center Fort Worth. He submitted a marriage application to the federal prison to wed fellow inmate Jorge Marquez Flores, he announced in a news release Wednesday.
Maldonado was convicted in 2019 on 21 counts, including 19 counts of wildlife crimes and two counts of hiring hitmen to kill animal activist Carole Baskin. He is serving a 21-year sentence.
His fiancé, 33-year-old Jorge Marquez Flores, originally from Mexico, is serving time for immigration-related issues, according to Maldonado’s news release.
According to Maldonado, both men are optimistic the prison will approve their application and have “high hopes” that Maldonado’s appeal will succeed. He hopes the two would be released from prison in mid-2025.
In his news release, Maldonado also requested a presidential pardon for both he and Flores, as well as asylum for Flores.
“I wish someone that is President or wins the Presidency would do the right thing and pardon me so I could move past this nightmare that my own country has caused for the last 7 years of my life,” Maldonado wrote in the news release. “All I did was build a zoo and some people were very jealous. Then I was put into prison by my own country.”
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