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After Detroit man slits throat of 7-year-old Yemeni American girl, calls rise for attack to be investigated as hate crime

October 13, 2024 at 11:26 am

Flag of the United States flies in front of the US Capitol in Washington DC, United States on September 29, 2021 [Yasin Öztürk – Anadolu Agency]

Authorities in the United States’ city of Detroit are being urged to further investigate a knife attack on a young Muslim and Arab girl as a hate crime, amid a significant rise in targeted and discriminatory attacks over the past year.

On Tuesday this week, a 73-year-old man slit a 7-year-old girl’s throat while she was at Detroit’s Ryan Park with her grandmother. According to reports, the man went up to Saida Mashrah with a knife, lifted her head up, and slashed her throat, before she managed to escape by kicking him and rushing home to her mother.

Following the attack, the suspect – named Gary Lansky from Detroit – was taken into custody that same day, and was later charged with assault with intent to murder and felonious assault.

Police reportedly believe Lansky may have been suffering from mental illness, however, with his wife making the same assertion, causing them to dismiss the possibility of the attack being a hate crime. According to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, there is no sufficient evidence of that possibility, with the office’s spokesperson Maria Miller reiterating on Friday that it currently “has no evidence of a hate crime in the case”, without elaborating further.

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The potential of it being a targeted attack based on discriminatory views of the young girl’s Muslim and Yemeni heritage, however, has been emphasised by the girl’s mother, 32-year-old Amirah Sharhan from Detroit. “Why did he aim for her? Why come out of nowhere? Why?” asked Sharhan on Friday, according to media reports. “I don’t want my daughter’s case to be pushed to the side, at all.”

Others in Detroit and its state of Michigan have also called for a further investigation into the matter, with the Council on American Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) executive director of its Michigan branch, Dawud Walid, stating that “We urge the Detroit Police Department and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office to conduct a comprehensive investigation into this matter to determine whether hate was a motivating factor in the attack”.

Another notable figure to make such a call is US Representative for Detroit, Rashida Tlaib, who said in a statement on X that the attack on the young girl “must be investigated as a hate crime” and that the “constant dehumanization of Arab and Muslim people is resulting in hate crimes across our country”.