NBC Chicago: Woman charged with hate crime after incident at suburban Panera Bread caught on cam
By NBC Chicago Staff
A woman has been charged with a hate crime after an incident unfolded over the weekend at a suburban Chicago Panera Bread involving a man wearing a sweatshirt with the word “Palestine” written on it, officials said.
The disturbance happened just before noon Saturday at a restaurant in Downers Grove, located at 7361 Lemont Road, authorities said.
The woman, identified as 64-year-old Alexandra Szustakiewicz, allegedly confronted and yelled expletives at a man over his sweatshirt, according to DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin and Downers Grove Chief of Police Michael DeVries.
Szustakiewicz is also accused of hitting a cell phone out of the hands of a woman who was with the man and began recording the encounter.
“I’m a born and raised American who took his wife out for lunch. I was not able to do that simply because I was Palestinian,” the man in the sweatshirt, identified as Waseem, told the Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, in a statement.
In footage posted to social media, a woman can be seen in a physical exchange with a man in a “Palestine” sweatshirt, who is heard telling the woman to stop as he pushes her away from his wife. Szustakiewicz threatens to call the police and can be seen asking Panera employees to do so. The beginning of the exchange, however, was not caught on camera.
CAIR noted the woman who recorded the footage was pregnant and said in a statement hate “cannot and will not have a home here.”
Szustakiewicz was charged with two counts of a hate crime and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct, the state’s attorney’s office said. She was taken into custody the day after the incident.
“Every member of society, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or any other individual characteristic, deserves to be treated with respect and civility,” Berlin said in a statement. “This type of behavior and the accompanying prejudice have no place in a civilized society and my office stands ready to file the appropriate charges in such cases.”
New video released in alleged hate crime attack on Palestinian couple at Panera in Downers Grove, Illinois
By Sabrina Franza
CHICAGO (CBS) — Newly released videos have revealed additional details in the argument that led to hate crime charges against a woman accused of assaulting a Palestinian-American couple at a Panera Bread restaurant in Downers Grove.
The original cell phone video of the incident went viral, but police body camera footage and surveillance video obtained by CBS News Chicago show parts of the argument the cell phone video left out.
In the moments before the argument started at the Panera Bread on Lemont Road in Downers Grove, Waseem Zahran and his wife can be seen walking up to the counter. He was wearing a sweatshirt that read “Palestine” on the back.
The couple crossed paths with Alexandra Szustakiewicz, who was carrying a coffee in her hand. She returned and seemed to say something to them, while gesturing toward them with her keys in her right hand. Zahran has said she had whispered an expletive about Palestine.
As the argument continues Zahran put his arm in front of his wife while she grabbed her phone to record the encounter. Zahran has said he was protecting his wife from having coffee tossed on her.
The rest of their exchange was caught on another Panera camera, and police body camera video showed Szustakiewicz’s arrest the next day.
“You’re trying to arrest me?” she asked as she denied hate crime charges against her. “I didn’t do anything. I just … he he he just just just stepped in front of me, and I said, ‘Well, I don’t like what you’re wearing.'”
She was charged with two felony hate crime counts and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
“You see that he was pushing. He was pushing me all the time. If he would have just let me go, it would just be over,” she said.
Szustakiewicz, 64, was granted release after her arrest, but has been barred from entering the Panera Bread where the incident took place.
She is due back in court on Dec. 16.
