(JTA) — A top aide to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was physically assaulted at a downtown vigil by assailants who also made an anti-Semitic slur.
Vance Henry, Emanuel’s deputy chief of staff, was punched, tackled and kicked on Sunday evening at the event for two people who were shot and killed over the weekend by Chicago police officers, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
It is believed the anti-Semitic remarks were directed at Emanuel, who is Jewish but was not at the vigil. Henry is black. The newspaper did not say what the slur was.
“What are you doing here, you should be downtown doing something about this,” one of the assailants reportedly said. The same man also said that “the police are killing us,” according to the report.
Emanuel reportedly was scheduled to return early from a family vacation to Cuba to deal with the situation.
The officers who killed Bettie Jones, 55, and Quintonio LeGrier, 19, were responding to a domestic disturbance call on Saturday, the Tribune reported.
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