MONDAY, AUGUST 26 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
rant for speaking Spanish and
began throwing things at them.
Occasionally, the suspects’ lan-
guage echoed that of President
Trump.
A Latina told police that a
stranger grabbed her buttocks
near the Mall, then told her to “get
out of the U.S.” and “go back to her
country.” Two Hispanic men were
approached on U Street late one
night by two strangers who called
them “MS-13,” a reference to the
gang, before punching and kick-
ing them, according to a police
report.
The day after the midterm elec-
tion, a Hispanic woman was
crossing the street when the driv-
er of a car told her to “Go back to
Mexico,” according to another re-
port. The woman then told the
motorist, who was black, to “Go
back to Africa,” prompting him to
get out of his car and punch her in
the mouth.
For the seventh-grader, the rac-
ist attack during her walk home
from school in November deeply
shook the girl, who had only re-
cently moved to the neighbor-
hood.
“The first three nights, she
woke me up, screaming,” her
mother said. “She dreamed that
the man was following her again,
or that he was in our house.”
The girl said she initially dis-
tanced herself from white friends.
She told only one classmate about
the incident.
“I don’t want people to think
I’m looking for attention,” she
said.
A week after she and her moth-
er reported the attack, police sus-
pended their investigation.
“There was no video recovered
that would have assisted this
case,” police said in a statement.
“Cases are suspended when the
detective [has] exhausted all
leads.”
The girl, now 13, said what
happened has shaken her faith in
adults, white people and the po-
lice.
“I feel like the detective
thought I was lying,” she said. “I’m
not going to lie about something
that traumatic.”
[email protected]Peter Hermann and Julie Tate
contributed to this report.his grill. He didn’t call police
again.
“It’s not like they said, ‘Stop
bothering us,’ ” he said. “But I got
the sense that they thought they
had bigger things to deal with.”
Not long ago, he moved.‘Go back to Africa’
It wasn’t until later — after the
police interviews — that the black
middle-schooler had time to
think about the slur she said her
white attacker had shouted as he
pinned her to the ground. She had
heard the word before growing up
in the District. But never like that,
she said, never so full of hate and
menace.
At least a dozen times last year,
African Americans were called
the n-word during suspected hate
crimes in the District.
One man heard it as he was spit
upon; another as he was attacked
with a bicycle lock; a third as he
was driving, when a man in a
pickup truck next to him shouted
it while brandishing a handgun,
according to police reports.
In April 2018, a woman visiting
the once-segregated Banneker
swimming pool — built for blacks
in 1934 — returned to her car to
find her tires and seats slashed
and “N-----” scrawled on the hood.
There were 75 suspected hate
crimes in 2018 motivated by race
or ethnicity, up from 65 in 2017,
The Post found: 26 against Afri-
can Americans, 24 against His-
panics, 15 against whites, six
against Asians, three against peo-
ple perceived to be of Arab de-
scent and one against all non-
whites. (The Post sometimes clas-
sified the type of suspected hate
crime differently than D.C. police
did and counted the incidents by
the year in which they occurred.)
The reports reflected an in-
creasingly diverse city where
many neighborhoods are chang-
ing, but where many prejudices
persist.
An Indian woman was spat
upon in a Chinese restaurant in
Adams Morgan by the director of
a Polish American cultural or-
ganization, according to one po-
lice report. Two Asian women
were allegedly attacked on sepa-
rate occasions while shopping. A
woman became angry at employ-
ees at a Popeyes chicken restau-she said.
Most of the reported incidents
came within a month or so of the
midterm election. Only one has
led to an arrest, police records
show.
On Oct. 26, a letter arrived at
the D.C. office of Gara LaMarche,
president of the liberal Democra-
cy Alliance.
“I know who you are, what you
look like, where you work, where
you live, and what you drive,” the
letter said, according to a police
report. “I’m an ex-Army Ranger
who has access to classified infor-
mation about everyone in this
country.... So, I think I’ll pay you
a visit soon. What do you think
will happen then? Trust me — it
will be the worst day in your life!”
“This was the same week pipe
bombs were being sent to people”
around the country, LaMarche
told The Post. “The atmosphere
was kind of unnerving.”
Carlson himself was the target
of another politically motivated
incident, police said.
Protesters calling themselves
“Smash Racism D.C.” gathered
outside his house the night after
the midterm election to denounce
his harsh anti-immigration rhet-
oric. Carlson wasn’t home, but his
wife was. As she locked herself in
the pantry and called 911, a pro-
tester with a bullhorn blasted him
for “promoting hate.”
“We want you to know, we
know where you sleep at night,”
the person said.
Carlson’s friend, the GOP do-
nor, said police didn’t take it seri-
ously when his back door was
smashed a week later. They ig-
nored surveillance footage and
dismissed the idea of dusting the
rock for fingerprints, he said. Af-
ter he offered to turn the rock over
to federal law enforcement
agents, the police changed their
minds, he said. Police later told
him the rock was too porous to
test.
D.C. police said they investigat-
ed the case thoroughly, including
the rock and surveillance video,
but could not identify the cul-
prits.
After the incident, the donor
said, more glass was broken, patio
furniture was tipped over, sand-
wiches were thrown at his win-
dows, and sushi was left to rot ongrant caravan, the man walked to
the front of his townhouse, where
he could hear someone shouting.
When he looked outside, he said,
he saw about half a dozen people
pelting his home with rocks.
As he dialed 911, the glass door
suddenly shattered.
The rock had “F--- TRUMP”
written on it.
“This has been nonstop,” said
the man, a GOP donor and Trump
family friend whom The Post
agreed not to name because he
was the victim of a crime.
“I am probably going to have to
move out of D.C.,” he said. “I’m not
safe.”
The incident in mid-November
was one of 10 politically fueled
hate-crime reports last year, ac-
cording to D.C. police. Washing-
ton is one of the few cities in the
country that counts political affil-
iation as a basis for hate crimes.
Victims include the famous
and the ordinary, conservatives
and liberals.
In March 2018, a preschool
teacher was waiting in line at a
taco restaurant near Dupont Cir-
cle when she interrupted two
women as they criticized the pres-
ident.
“I support Donald Trump,” said
the teacher, who said she still
fears for her safety and asked not
to be named. As an argument
erupted, the teacher began film-
ing on her phone. Seconds later,
the two women attacked her,
breaking her finger and bursting a
blood vessel in her eye, she said.
Her video of the assault went viral
as conservative websites cited it as
an example of liberal intolerance.
A year later, the teacher told
The Post she is still paying off her
hospital bills and seeing a thera-
pist.
A Latina, she said she voted for
Barack Obama and then Hillary
Clinton in 2016, before taking a
shine to Trump after the election.
But she said the attack — commit-
ted by two black women who were
not apprehended — had left her
wary of African Americans.
“I’m dealing with a lot of trau-
ma and anger,” she said. “If I see a
group of people who are black, it’s
like I can’t say anything anymore
because it’s like they are going to
attack me.”
“I don’t want to think that way,”2018 when she spotted a woman
panhandling on the side of road.
As Amer rolled down her window
to give her money, the woman
noticed Amer’s hijab.
“You f---ing terrorist,” the wom-
an screamed, according to Amer.
“Go back to your country.”
Then the woman began hitting
Amer’s car with a shoe.
Amer drove away and reported
what happened to the police. But
that incident and others she has
endured cut deep for the Air Force
and Peace Corps veteran. She re-
cently stopped wearing her hijab,
a decision that led some family
members and friends to question
her faith.
“After years of abuse — mental,
emotional and physical — now
I’m in the clear,” she said. “If this
brings judgment, it’s between me
and God.”
There was no such option for
the synagogues that started re-
ceiving threats in March 2018.
The first target was Tifereth Israel
Congregation. Then a male caller
threatened to sexually assault a
female employee at the National
Synagogue across the street.
In October, after the deadly
attack on the synagogue in Pitts-
burgh, the Washington Hebrew
Congregation received a flurry of
voice mails that said: “Go [to] hell
Jew,” “Hitler’s trash” and “F---
your Torah,” according to court
records.
The calls finally stopped in No-
vember with the arrest of a men-
tally troubled man named Yo-
hanes Lemma.
Lemma is no white suprema-
cist. This spring, the Ethiopian
immigrant welcomed a reporter
into his small apartment in Tako-
ma Park, Md., full of plastic flow-
ers and photos of his wife. As his
4-year-old son watched videos on
a cellphone and ate ice cream,
Lemma described moving to the
United States in 2006 after win-
ning the green-card lottery.
A devout Christian and now a
U.S. citizen, Lemma said he never
had a problem with Jews in Ethio-
pia. But a few years ago, he said,
he began to feel a strange sensa-
tion in the back of his head.
“I feel the Jewish people attack
me and my son,” he said.
Lemma admitted to leaving the
threatening messages, including
the call he made two days after
the Pittsburgh massacre.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “I
didn’t know this was a crime
because I am a foreigner.”
A few weeks after speaking to
The Post, Lemma pleaded guilty
to one count of misdemeanor
stalking — not a hate crime — and
on May 3 received a suspended
sentence of 365 days and five
years’ probation, which includes
mental health screening.
But Lemma also told The Post
that he still thought his family
was somehow under attack from
Jews, adding that next time, in-
stead of threatening synagogues,
“maybe I will go to the police
station.”
‘I’m not safe’
The man was watching his
friend Tucker Carlson on TV, text-
ing the conservative talk show
host during commercial breaks,
when he heard a bang.
As Carlson railed against a mi-
FROM A
ASTRID RIECKEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTAir Force veteran Sarah Amer always wore a hijab. But after a series of unsettling incidents, including one last year in which a woman on the street called her a “terrorist,” she decided to stop wearing one.
ASTRID RIECKEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
LEFT: Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, whose house was targeted in a politically motivated incident, leaves the stage after speaking at a summit in March. Washington is one of
the few U.S. cities that counts political affiliation as a basis for hate crimes. RIGHT: Police have suspended the investigation into a black girl’s assault by a white man.“After years of
abuse — mental,
emotional and
physical — now
I’m in the clear.
If this brings
judgment, it’s
between me and
God.”
Sarah Amer, on her decision
to stop wearing a hijab“The first three
nights, she woke
me up, screaming.
She dreamed that
the man was
following her
again, or that he
was in our house.”
The mother of a
black girl who was
attacked last year while
walking home from schoolCHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES