Around 7 p.m. on Sunday, a group of young men drove through Austin’s West Campus neighborhood, near the University of Texas. They’d attended a large pro-Palestine rally that afternoon, where several thousand people gathered outside the state Capitol, waving Palestinian flags and hoisting signs with calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
According to family members and local advocates, a white man on a bicycle approached the young men’s car Sunday evening and attempted to remove a keffiyeh, a headscarf that signals Palestinian solidarity, from a flag pole attached to the car. The man then allegedly attacked the car’s occupants, three of whom are Palestinian-American. Witnesses told the Council on American Islamic Relations the man pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the Palestinian Americans; the victim was later identified by his father as Zacharia Doar.
The Austin Police Department (APD) arrested 36-year-old Bert James Baker Sunday night for felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the incident. In a statement released Tuesday, APD dubbed the attack “bias-motivated.” Baker is being held at Travis County Jail as of Tuesday afternoon.
