The Plainfield community Sunday honored Wadee Alfayoumi, the 6-year-old Palestinian American boy who was killed in what authorities have said was an anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian hate crime.
Dozens gathered at Settler’s Park in Plainfield, where the boy lived with his mother, on the eve of the one-year mark since his stabbing death, ABC7 reported.
“You never think of how your students make a difference in your life,” Trisha Mathias, one of Wadee’s former teachers, said at the gathering, according to the ABC7 report. “Wadee is continuing to make a difference in people’s lives. My goal for my students is for them always to become something. He inspires me every single day as a result. And I just want that to be remembered. He is that face.”
Will County authorities have said Joseph Czuba, the man charged with stabbing Wadee multiple times, may have been radicalized by what he was hearing on conservative talk radio in the days following the start of the War in Gaza. He allegedly feared Wadee’s mother’s “Palestinian friends” after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, authorities say.
Hanan Shaheen, second from left, the mother of 6-year-old Palestinian American boy Wadee Alfayoumi, who was killed last year in Plainfield Township, stands next to U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 17. Shaheen, who was wounded in the attack, attended a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focusing on hate crimes.
Lynn Sweet/Sun-Times file
Hate crimes have spiked since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered the war, a conflict that recently hit the one-year mark.
Wadee’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, was also stabbed in the attack. Czuba, 71, remains jailed in Will County on murder and hate crime charges.
The family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging Czuba’s wife and brother played accessory roles that led up to the attack.
Thousands of people gathered in suburban Bridgeview for the boy’s funeral days after his slaying.
Last month, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution honoring Wadee.