Syrian refugee, 17, attacked on San Diego trolley by man shouting slurs, police say
Assault comes amid spate of Islamophobic hate crimes in southern California, advocates say
am Levin in Los Angeles
@SamTLevin Email
Thu 17 Oct 2019 17.41 EDT
A 17-year-old Syrian refugee was attacked on a trolley in San Diego by a man yelling anti-Arab slurs, according to advocates and police, who say the assault was the latest in a series of Islamophobic hate crimes in southern California.
The high school student was returning home from school on Tuesday afternoon when a man approached and asked, “Where are you from? Are you Mexican?”, according to the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (Pana), a community organization assisting the victim. When the teenager said he was Arab, the man assaulted him while shouting anti-Arab and Islamophobic slurs, injuring his face and eye, the group said.
The attack, which police are investigating as a hate crime, comes one week after a San Diego man was charged with hate crimes in a separate incident. Kyle Allen, 50, was accused of attacking three Muslim women, including slapping them and pulling on one of their hijabs while telling them to “go back to your country”. In March, there was also an arson attack on a mosque in the region.
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Jones-Wright said she was disturbed to learn that there were several witnesses on the trolley but that no one intervened to help the teenager: “There were people standing around watching this child be pummeled.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/17/syria-refugee-san-diego-attack-report-hate-crimes
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