Chicago police are investigating motive after Jewish man was shot while walking to synagogue

Jewish community leaders in Chicago called for hate crime charges against a suspect accused of shooting a man walking to a synagogue.

Police said Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, 22, of Chicago, approached a 39-year-old man wearing a yarmulke head covering and shot him in the shoulder Saturday morning in the West Roger’s Park neighborhood north of the city’s center.

When officers and paramedics arrived on the scene, Abdallahi fired several shots at them, hitting only an ambulance, police said. Officers returned fire, striking Abdallahi before rendering aid; he was taken to a nearby hospital, where he remained as of Monday. The victim’s injuries were not life-threatening and he was released from a local hospital, police said.

Chicago police announced charges against Abdallahi on Monday, including six counts of attempted first-degree murder, seven counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm against a police officer or firefighter and one count of aggravated battery with the discharge of a firearm.

Chicago Police Chief Larry Snelling said Monday that detectives were still investigating a possible motive and Abdallahi’s background. He asked for the community’s patience as the investigation continues.

“We understand the concerns surrounding this incident and we are doing everything we can to ensure the community is safe,” he said. “There is a lot of information circulating about the shooting and we ask the public not to rush to judgment in this situation.”

Jewish leaders expressed disappointment that no hate crime charges were filed

Councilwoman Debra Silverstein, a Chicago City Council member who attends the same synagogue as the victim, said she would like to see hate crime charges filed, adding that the incident “has shaken my community to its core.” .

“I am concerned about the lack of hate crime charges in this case,” Silverstein said at a news conference Monday. “While the motive remains under investigation, the community is rightly concerned given the nature and timing of the attack.”

Rabbi Shlomo Soroka, director of government affairs for the Orthodox Jewish organization Agudath Israel of America, said he was disappointed that no hate crime charges had been filed, but said he understands the investigation is ongoing and more charges could be filed later come.

“We have just witnessed an act of violence that touches the heart of our shared family,” he said at a news conference Tuesday at a Chicago-area synagogue.

“As a community, we are afraid,” Rabbi Levi Mostofsky, executive director of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, said at the same event. “When a visibly Jewish individual is shot without provocation in an otherwise quiet neighborhood on the way to the synagogue, we are terrorized.”

The shooting comes amid a spike in incidents targeting Jews

In the year since the October 7 attack on Israel, anti-Semitic incidents in the US, including intimidation, vandalism and physical violence, have increased dramatically, according to the US newspaper The Guardian. League against defamation. There has also been a spike in reports of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents. according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The increase in these types of incidents has raised all levels of the crisis law enforcement agencies are on high alert as federal authorities monitor threats and local officials strengthen surveillance and security measures at mosques and synagogues.

In the immediate aftermath of October 7 FBI Director Christopher Wray said the agency’s “most immediate concern” was violent extremists, individuals or small groups, who “may draw inspiration from events in the Middle East to carry out attacks on Americans in their daily lives.”

Snelling said Chicago police have been “paying special attention” to houses of worship for some time.

“We are aware of what is going on in the world right now and we know how it can impact neighborhoods, communities and people of faith,” he said.