Jewish leaders in Chicago are urging the local prosecutor to upgrade the charge against a Muslim man who allegedly shot a Jewish man walking to synagogue on Saturday in West Rogers Park, home to one of the city’s largest Orthodox Jewish populations, to a hate crime.

The 22-year-old suspect reportedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he exchanged fire with police officers responding to the initial shooting.

“We’re very disappointed,” Shlomo Soroka, Agudath Israel of Illinois’ director of government affairs, told Jewish Insider. “I hope they add hate crime charges on later but regardless, even if there are technical reasons that they didn’t file hate crime charges, they have to understand what this really was — not even this specific incident — but what we have been saying for a long time, that the visibly Jewish community, which is the Orthodox community, is at grave risk. And it’s not just here in Chicago.”

Before the charges were announced, Soroka said that law enforcement was not doing enough to “reassure” the “anxious community.” 

“Certain details around the incident are not being shared or reported with the public,” he said. “There’s a feeling that if this happened to a different community, it would be covered differently.”

In a statement on Monday, Debra Silverstein, alderman of Chicago’s 50th Ward, where the shooting occurred, said she was “very disappointed by this turn of events.”

Silverstein went on to say that she “strongly encourage[s] the Cook County State’s Attorney Office to prosecute the offender to the full extent of the law,” noting that “additional charges – including hate crime charges – can still be added.” 

“I can assure you that law enforcement takes this incident extremely seriously,” Silverstein said. 

In a news release on Monday detailing the charges, Chicago police did not mention any indication of the victim’s Jewish identity, despite being dressed as an identifiable Orthodox Jew, according to Agudath Israel. The Chicago Tribune also did not identify the victim as Jewish. 

The 22-year-old suspect, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, shouted the Arabic phrase as he shot at police officers and paramedics responding to the shooting, according to video footage obtained by a doorbell camera. The police shootout occurred after Abdallahi shot a 39-year-old male, injuring his shoulder. Abdallahi was charged with six felony counts of attempted murder in the first degree, seven felony counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm at a police officer and one felony count of aggravated battery/ discharge firearm.

Over the weekend, Larry Snelling, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, held a call with a select group of local Jewish leaders, a recording of which was obtained by Jewish Insider. Snelling said that he was hesitant to immediately label the shooting as a hate crime because doing so would lead to the police department being “accused of focusing hate toward the Muslim faith, without that proof.”

“Because this person was of Muslim faith, without any proof of why that is, to say we are investigating it as a hate crime, would give the Muslim faith the ability to say the Chicago Police Department is being racist against them,” Snelling said. 

“What we don’t want to do is raise fears on the other side,” Snelling continued. During a press conference on Saturday, Kevin Bruno, deputy chief of the Chicago Police Department detectives bureau, did not address the fact that the victim was Jewish until asked by a reporter. Bruno responded that “he was from the community.”

Lonnie Nasatir, president of the Jewish United Fund, Chicago’s Jewish federation, and a former prosecutor, told JI before the charges were announced that it’s important for a hate crime charge to be added “because it sends a message to the community that we’re going to take these things seriously, and that we have law enforcement that will use every tool at their disposal.” 

The outcome is a contrast to the swift hate crime charges that came after a man stabbed to death a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy last October in a Chicago suburb. 

While the investigation was still ongoing, Nasatir said that in a situation such as this one, it is reasonable for a police investigation — which could include obtaining a warrant to go into the suspect’s home computers to look for a manifesto — to take some time. 

“Law enforcement has been very forthcoming with us,” Nasatir said. “This is a serious crime that will be thrown at this guy, including shooting a police officer, and in Illinois you add a hate crime offense, which in some cases can up charges from a misdemeanor to a felony, but in this case you’re already getting attempted murder.” 

But he was less impressed by Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, who as of Monday had not released a statement about the shooting. 

Earlier this year, Johnson voted in favor of a resolution demanding a ceasefire without mentioning Hamas. 

“Regardless of if it was religiously motivated or not, the fact that an innocent person walking the streets of Chicago was shot at this weekend, the mayor should address it and express his concern for the family, like he does with a lot of shootings,” Nasatir said.