University of Waterloo police have a description of a suspect they believe has been hanging posters and sending other forms of media around the university that are targeting women, according to Waterloo University Police.
The suspect, according to Dan Anderson, director of Waterloo University Police Services, was caught slipping a poster underneath the door of a biology lab about two weeks ago. Anderson said the suspect was wearing ski mask that covered his entire face but his eyes.
“[The suspect] made up an excuse and left, but it was obviously him,” Anderson told the school’s student newspaper, the Imprint. “The student doesn’t believe she was in any danger, however there are probably people who would disagree.”
Anderson said the encounter happened at about 10 p.m. in one of the school’s science buildings.
Police have described the suspect as having a slim build, between 5’9 and 5’11 with olive skin, no accent, and dark eyes and eyebrows. At the time of the encounter, he was also wearing “dark dress pants, dark shoes, and a three-quarter length puffy jacket with black gloves,” according to the Imprint.
Waterloo Police Service sergeant Gregg Fiss said they have received further tips on the individual but details cannot be released at this time.
“We’ve released the description in hopes that we’ll generate some more feedback from students and the community,” Fiss said. “There’s not much more we can say at the moment.”
The issue has been the centre of much debate, since police are currently saying the attacks cannot be charged as hate crimes. Fiss said that “there’s nothing to indicate that the incidents are on the threshold of a hate crime according to the Canadian criminal code,” Fiss said.
According to the Kitchener Record hate crimes only cover, race, religion and sexual orientation, but according to an article published in Maclean’s, section 319 of the Criminal Code , which addresses hate crimes says “everyone who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace” is committing a hate crime.
Last week, a new poster began circulating containing a photo of Marie Curie, linking her to the recent disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan. The poster read “First she took Hiroshima and now she takes Fukushima. The devil always takes Manhattan before he takes Berlin!”