Six Muslim Queen’s University students were victims of an alleged hate crime in the early morning hours of Oct. 6, according to Kingston police.
The students were walking home after a movie at 1:30 a.m. on Fraser Street in Kingston when a group of four Caucasian males approached the students on bicycles, yelling racial slurs and profanities at them before attacking them. One of the suspects hit a student with what is believed to be a bat, Kingston police’s media officer Steve Koopman said.
He said the student sustained minor injuries.
“[The students] scattered and ran. One of the victims contacted Kingston police,” Koopman said.
He said a uniformed officer and a canine officer attended to the scene. The case was then assigned to Kingston police’s major crime unit.
“We were able to safely locate all six victims, but the four suspects had fled,” Koopman said.
Koopman said one of the students was able to quickly take a rough photograph on his phone of one of the suspects, which was then posted out to the media.
“Shortly thereafter, we were able to make two arrests . . . and the day after, a third arrest,” he said.
According to news releases by Kingston police, the three arrested suspects are aged 18, 19, and 20 years old. The fourth suspect is yet to be apprehended, and is believed to be between 18-25 years old.
The releases also state the names of the first two arrested, Kenneth J. Murphy and Clayton R. Lee.
In addition to being charged with assault with a weapon and uttering threats, Koopman said two of the four suspects have a prior record and are on probation, which is why they are also being charged with breach of probation.
“There appears to be no motive other than one based upon hate of another race or culture,” Koopman said. “[The students] did not know the four suspects, they’ve never had any interaction with them.”
Queen’s principal Daniel Woolf said in a media release he was concerned about the incident.
“I am shocked and dismayed to learn that anyone in this community would be the victim of an unprovoked attack of this kind, let alone six of our students,” he said.
Woolf said Queen’s is committed to “protecting our faculty, staff and students from hate and discrimination of all kinds.”
Faraz Naeem, president of the Muslim Students’ Association at Queen’s, said via email that the Kingston community is very well balanced.
However, he said there are “black sheeps in the community everywhere who have a stereotypical approach in whatever they see is different from them.”
Naeem said that the six students are known to Queen’s Muslim Students’ Association, but “would like to remain anonymous as of now.”
