(CNN) — A man who was arrested earlier this year in connection with the stabbing of a Palestinian-American was indicted by a Texas grand jury Tuesday on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, despite calls from Muslim civil rights advocates to have him charged with a hate crime.
Austin police arrested Bert Baker, 36, in February and said at the time they believed the alleged attack to have been a “bias-motivated incident.”
But the grand jury “did not make a hate crime finding,” meaning the group “did not determine that the defendant intentionally selected the victim because of a bias or prejudice against the victim’s race, national origin, ancestry, or religion,” the Travis County District Attorney’s Office announced in a Tuesday news release.
“We know that many religious communities in Travis County and across the country are deeply concerned about a rise in hate crime reports and that many were hoping for the grand jury to reach a different conclusion in this case,” District Attorney José Garza said in a statement.