An arrest was made and charges laid Oct. 4, after a man allegedly threatened two Carleton students with a knife and assaulted them with an umbrella, police said.
On Sept. 30, two members of the Students Against Israeli Apertheid (SAIA) group, Dax D’Orazio and Reem Buhaisi, said they were attacked by a man who was trying to rip down posters put up by the group.
Allan Burns, director of the department of campus safety, said there had been a complaint about the posters being ripped down earlier that same day.
“It was a verbal altercation that turned physical,” said Constable Katherine Larouche of the Ottawa Police Service.
Stanislav Vardomskiy, 30, is charged with assault with a weapon and mischief to property.
According to D’Orazio, the posters were promoting SAIA’s Divestment Teach-in. They feature a helicopter labelled “Israel,” firing missiles at the word “Palestine.”
D’Orazio said he tried to prevent a man from removing two posters at the bottom of the stairs by the Unicentre’s main entrance.
“I saw the person get into [D’Orazio]’s face so . . . I ran down the stairs, put my hand on the posters,” Buhaisi said.
Both witnesses said the man proceeded to pull a utility knife from his belt, asking “Are you threatening me?”
Both D’Orazio and Buhaisi said they removed their hands, and replied “no.”
The man used the knife to cut down the poster and pushed between the two witnesses, who followed him out of the building, D’Orazio and Buhaisi said. Buhaisi said D’Orazio pulled out a video camera, which the man tried to grab.
“[He] started whacking me with his umbrella,” D’Orazio said.
“He opened the umbrella after striking us with it and shielded himself so we couldn’t get a clear picture,” D’Orazio said.
Throughout this ordeal, Buhaisi said she had tried to call campus safety multiple times, but only got through as the man got on the O-Train.
Burns said the department of campus safety received a call at 5 p.m. and officers responded to the scene minutes after the call was made. The officers immediately called Ottawa police.
On Oct. 4, D’Orazio said he saw the man once again and followed him, again calling campus safety.
“[Safety officers] were dispatched and arrested the male, who was subsequently turned over to police,” Burns said.