Mohamed Abdi Mohamed faces more charges for hate crime attack.
By Sam Catanzaro
A man accused in an alleged hate crime attack last year near a Hancock Park synagogue has been charged with two counts of premeditated attempted murder, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has announced.
Mohamed Abdi Mohamed, born 1/1/86, of Seattle, pleaded not guilty on Jan. 31 to the new charges, which were added in an amended felony complaint filed on Jan. 29.
Mohamed also faces two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon, a vehicle, as well as a hate crime allegation, in case BA473133 filed on Nov. 27. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
A preliminary hearing setting is scheduled for Feb. 22 in Department 34 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center. Bail has been set at $1 million.
On Nov. 23, Mohamed allegedly yelled religious epithets out of his car window at two men leaving a synagogue in the Los Angeles neighborhood, said Deputy District Attorney Richard Ceballos of the Organized Crime Division. The defendant is accused of then attempting to hit the men, who were walking on a sidewalk, with his vehicle on North La Brea Avenue at Oakwood Avenue.
The defendant allegedly fled but collided with another vehicle a couple of blocks away and was arrested, the prosecutor said. The victims were unharmed.
Mohamed faces a possible maximum sentence of life in state prison if convicted as charged.
The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department, Major Crimes Division.
This is not the first antisemitic attack the area has seen. On March 3, 2018, a serial vandal spray-painted, “Jew Rat” on a bank and a kosher market on the same block in West Los Angeles. A synagogue is located across the street from the bank.
According to the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations’ recently released 2017 Hate Crimes Report, while overall religious motived hate crimes did not rise in the county, Anti-Semitic crimes rose four percent from 2016. In addition, 72 percent of all religious hate crimes were targeted at the Jewish community.
