Hate Crimes
“Hate crimes, and the accompanying prejudice that fuels the type of despicable actions alleged in this case, have no place in civilized society,” the DuPage County state’s attorney said.
Blake Richard Hoover, 31, faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison if convicted on all counts.
A school official said the incident “is abhorrent.” The local district attorney said it’s “not a foolish college prank and will not be treated as such.”
Gezim Topalli, 31, was arrested in his Halifax home on Tuesday.
While the person is expected to face charges, an investigation into the August incidents remains ongoing, police said.
The private school said it reported the matter to NYPD as “an antisemitic hate crime” and to the school’s Title VI coordinator.
“We are experiencing a deplorable escalation of antisemitism across southern California,” Peter Levi, of the ADL, told JNS.
“Antisemitic violence has no place in our society,” stated Andrew Boutros, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
“We condemn these acts in the strongest possible terms,” the police department in Concord, Mass., stated.
“Even in this most heinous circumstance, we cannot endorse the further taking of human life,” the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism wrote to the U.S. Justice Department.
The hate crime included burning cars and writing “death to the IDF” on the street, according to the Clayton Police Department in Missouri.
“The egregious conduct of this defendant stands in direct violation of our core values and must be confronted with the full force of the law,” per the U.S. Justice Department.
