Hate crimes tripled in Illinois between 2017 and 2022
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Plainfield Township landlord accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old boy, and critically wounding his mother, pleaded not guilty to all charges Monday.
Joseph Czuba, 71, was formally indicted last week on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, two counts of aggravated battery, and two counts of hate crime. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday morning in Will County.
Prosecutors have said Czuba stabbed 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume 26 times, and stabbed his mother, 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin, more than a dozen times because of their religion and nationality. Wadea was laid to rest last week, and his mother remained in the hospital recovering on Monday.
Authorities have said Czuba targeted the victims because of their Muslim faith, and because of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
On Monday, CBS 2 Political Reporter Chris Tye took a closer look at hate crimes – namely what is happening more often, and what to expect as we move forward. Tye sat down with the head of the local FBI team that handles hate crimes in the Chicago area.
Wadea's murder underlines a trend that is concerning to those inside Chicago's FBI headquarters.
"Going back to 2017, the number of hate incidents that were reported in Illinois was about 85," said Special Agent Brian Etchell, who oversees hate crimes out of the Chicago FBI field office. "In five years in 2022, the number of incidents has tripled."
Tye asked Etchell what he points to as the cause for that startling and shocking change.
"No one really knows what the exact reason is," Etchell replied. "I'm sure it's a number of contributing factors."
Among the factors tracked by Etchell are global events.
A spike in anti-Israeli and anti-Palestinian hate crimes in recent weeks is similar to spikes seen toward Muslim Americans after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and toward Asian Americans at the height of the COVID pandemic.
Last year there were over 11,000 hate crimes nationally – and 300 in Illinois. Of those, about half are race related, 20 percent are related to religion, and the rest are a mixture of motives.
This year's numbers are not out yet, but new trendlines are coming into focus.
Hate crimes involving religion are actually on the decline nationwide, while cases involving race are in the increase. In Chicago, there is also a new disturbing hate crime trend - and it's ticking up with every arriving migrant bus.
"And now that they are more present; that they're seeing it in the media more so, it's going to start to cause that underlying undercurrent of bias against migrants to start to come up and erupt," Etchell said. "For one, the opportunity for hate crimes against them has increased, because there's simply more of them. It's a numbers game."
And much like the attack in Plainfield - charged as a hate crime, and the m mass shootings in Maine last week – which were not a hate crime, there is a concerning throughline at play too - lone wolf actors.
Tye: "Are those the kind of individuals that keep you up at night?"
Etchell: "They are, because they are so difficult to track. They're not part of a group that meets regularly, and it's hard to see what's inside someone's head, what's inside someone's soul, and what kind of bias they have inside of them and what's going to trigger it."
The FBI urging anyone that is getting a sense a friend or family member may be near that trigger point to call them at 1-800-CALL-FBI.