“This shooting should be personal to everybody across the city,” said Larry Snelling, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department.

JNS Staff Report
October 31, 2024

Larry Snelling, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, announced that the city is adding one felony count of terrorism and one felony count of a hate crime to the 14 felony charges brought against Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi.

Abdallahi, 22, is accused of shooting a 39-year-old Jewish man, as well as firing at police officers and paramedics on Oct. 26. Snelling said that investigators found evidence on the accused gunman’s phone that indicated that he deliberately targeted Jews.

“We did not secure these charges because of public pressure” or media coverage, the police official said, speaking at a press conference at 4:30 p.m. local time at Chicago Police Department headquarters.

“We want everybody to know that we will never tolerate violence that’s rooted in hate and bigotry,” he said, noting that the crime affects the Jewish community in particular. “This shooting should be personal to everybody across the city,” he added.

“We did not rush to judgment,” Snelling said “We made sure that we continued the investigation.”

Snelling spoke alongside Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney for Cook County, Ill.

The mayor has faced intense criticism from the Chicago Jewish community for issuing a statement days later, which didn’t note that the victim was visibly Jewish. Police did not initially announced hate crime charges among the 14 felony charges.

“Antisemitism in Chicago doesn’t reflect the soul of Chicago,” the mayor said at the press conference.

Foxx referred to the “extraordinary nature” of the terror charges, which she said refer to an action that wasn’t just “spur of the moment,” but were intended to cause terror in a specific community.

Sarah Van Loon, Chicago regional director of the American Jewish Committee, told JNS that “since Saturday, Chicago’s Jewish community has been seeking reassurance that authorities were investigating this attack as a hate crime, because we were deeply concerned that a member of our community was violently targeted.”

“With that said, we continue to urge a thorough investigation so that justice can be served,” she said.

Abdallahi’s scheduled appearance in court on Tuesday was delayed, while he remains in the hospital, and he now slated to appear in court on Nov. 7, Foxx said.

“We are a strong, united and resilient community and we will remain that way,” Debra Silverstein, the alderman of Chicago’s 50th Ward, said of Jews.

Silverstein, who is Jewish, thanked Chicago Police for their efforts, but did not thank the mayor.

Abdallahi, who was hit multiple times during a two-and-a-half minute shootout with police officers, has been assigned a public defender, NBC 5 Chicago reported.

The defendant reportedly entered the country illegally.

This is a developing story.