Hate Crime Charges Filed In Antisemitic Vandalism In Rogers Park

CHICAGO — Hate crime charges have been filed against a man accused of carrying out a series of acts of antisemitic vandalism over the weekend, authorities announced.

Shahid Hussain, 39, has been charged with four counts of hate crime, two counts of felony defacement of school property and two counts of felony criminal damage, according to police and prosecutors.

"These acts of hate gripped the West Rogers Park community and shocked the city of Chicago," Superintendent David Brown said Tuesday at a news conference. "In fact, just this morning, a member of the congregation was threatened by several individuals right outside these doors."

Police got a call of a man spray-painting swastikas in an alley shortly after 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. A few minutes later, a yellow swastika was discovered at a synagogue and Jewish high school on Devon Avenue, Brown said.

Around 6:15 p.m., officers were dispatched to a 911 call of a person yelling antisemitic slurs and threats in the 6300 block of North Sacramento Avenue. Police took him into custody.

"During the course of the investigation, detectives determined the subject matched the description of the offender responsible for the criminal damage to property," Brown said.

Investigators also determined that Hussain was responsible for overnight damage to a synagogue in the 2800 block of West North Shore Avenue and to a Jewish school in the 3600 block of West Devon Avenue, according to the city's top cop.

Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx said hate crime specialists in her office will be handling the prosecution of the case. Under Illinois law, certain misdemeanor offenses can be charged as felony hate crimes when they are motivated by various characteristics of the victim.

"Oftentimes hate crimes are difficult to prove," Foxx said.

"In instances like this, where we recognize the trend, where we're seeing that these are religious institutions or establishments where the Jewish community frequents, and the symbolism that was used," Foxx said. "The fact of the matter that a swastika was used gives us a firm footing that whomever was responsible for these acts knew the intention of using that symbol on these institutions, knew what it was meant to illicit."

At a bond hearing Tuesday, Hussain was ordered jailed ahead of trial unless he comes up with the $25,000 cash portion of his bail, Foxx said.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said any threat to the Jewish community is a threat to the entire city.

"I know that this community is on edge. We see things that are happening in other parts of our country, other parts of the world," Lightfoot said at a public safety meeting Monday evening.

"This community, unlike others, has to worry constantly about who's coming down the aisle when you sit and pray in shul, and no one else has to worry about that kind of horrible concern," the mayor said. "So we have a heightened responsible to know that we as a community are rising to the occasion to in supporting this one given the specific types of challenges that you all face on a regular basis."