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.”
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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."
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