Hate crime charges filed against man who allegedly spray-painted swastika on synagogue; another person accosted
CHICAGO — Hate crime charges were filed Tuesday against a man who allegedly smashed windows and spray-painted swastikas on synagogues and the property of a Jewish girls’ school over the weekend.
Shahid Hussain 39, of Niles, faces four counts of a hate crime along with multiple charges of criminal damage and defacement, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference Tuesday. Hussain's bond is set at $250,000, with special conditions that he is not allowed near any institutions affected, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said at the same conference.
Additionally, a member of a separate Jewish congregation was reportedly accosted near their synagogue along the same corridor of Devon on Tuesday, police said.
A 35-year-old man was outside Congregation Bnei Ruven on North Whipple Street on Tuesday morning, when three people in a silver sedan approached, according to a police report. One exited the car and verbally threatened the man, who Brown said was a member of the congregation.
The people in the car drove into a parking lot and damaged the window of another parked vehicle, police said.
No injuries were reported and no one is in custody related to that incident, police said. Detectives are investigating, they added.
Hussain has a criminal history that includes pleading guilty to violating a restraining order last year, forgery in 2017 and aggravated DUI in 2013, according to court records.
He allegedly spray-painted F.R.E.E. Synagogue and a storage container on the property of Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov High School near the 2900 block of West Devon Avenue on Sunday, according to police. He then yelled at a man nearby, a police report said.
Hussain is also charged in relation to a report of shattered windows at a synagogue in the 3600 block of West Devon Avenue, and one in the 2800 block of West North Shore Avenue, police said. A man kicked out the side window of the Pulaski Park neighborhood synagogue Sunday, a witness reportedly told officers at the time.
Hussain was not charged in relation to additional cases of vandalism reported at Jewish businesses in the West Rogers Park neighborhood Saturday. Kol Tuv Kosher Foods and Tel Aviv Bakery, both in the 2900 block of West Devon Avenue, each had windows broken.
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