Last week, police determined that the stabbing of 23-year-old Zacharia Doar on February 4 following his attendance at a pro-Palestine rally in Austin qualified as a hate crime. It’s now up to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office to decide whether to prosecute. In public responses to the crime, Austin’s elected leaders remain divided on how—and whether—to address the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Around 7 p.m. on February 4, Bert James Baker, a 36-year-old Austin man described as “transient” in a heavily redacted police report obtained by the Texas Observer, approached a group of young men who were driving a 2019 Ford truck with a Palestinian keffiyeh displayed on a flagpole. The group had attended a large pro-Palestine rally in front of the Texas Capitol earlier that day. Witnesses say Baker spewed racist taunts at the men before allegedly attacking them and stabbing Doar in the chest with a knife. Austin Police Department (APD) officers arrested Baker on scene and filed charges for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson did not formally respond to the incident until three days later, after APD announced it had alerted the Travis County District Attorney’s Office that the incident fit the definition of a hate crime.
