A Chicago-area man was charged Saturday with stabbing a 79-year-old woman four times in the back and neck at a grocery store Friday because of her race, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
The man, Pol Danilov, 26, was charged with attempted murder and committing a hate crime. He reportedly told police that he attacked the woman in Homewood, Ill., with a steak knife because she was black and an “easy target,” Cook County prosecutors said on Saturday, the Sun-Times writes.
The knife, with a five-inch blade, also punctured a lung of the victim, who is expected to make a full recovery, the paper writes.
Prosecutors said Danilov has a history of animosity against African Americans, the report says. But the man told the court Saturday that he had “no recollection” of that history.
Read more at the Chicago Sun-Times.