All Posts Tagged With: "attack"
Student alleges hate crime at Seneca
School conducting review
A 22-year-old student at Seneca College in Toronto alleges he was the victim of a hate crime on campus, according to Xtra.ca. The police are calling it an “altercation that turned into a fight.” The student came to Canada with the help of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees. He alleges that on Nov. 25 he was attacked by a male student he has classes with. He says the fellow student accused him of gawking, punched a nearby telephone booth, pulled his hood down over his face and then cut his throat, most likely with a ballpoint pen. During the attack he was called “faggot” and “bitch.” Tony Vella of the Toronto Police Service told Xtra that a 21-year-old man was arrested in connection with the incident, charged with one count of assualt with a weapon and then released. Seneca officials say they are “conducting a general review into the matter.”
Blinded student returns to Vancouver
Rumana Monzur will receive treatment at UBC
The University of British Columbia student who was blinded by her husband during an attack in Bangladesh will return to Canada on Tuesday. Rumana Monzur has been granted a temporary resident permit by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. Because she will not be studying again right away, a student permit was inappropriate, reports Postmedia News.
Women around the world have rallied around the master of political science student as a symbol of how women sometimes struggle to be allowed to study. UBC officials say they have raised more than $35,000 toward Monzur’s expenses while she lives with her father on campus and recovers from the June 5 attack. She will receive care from the school’s department of ophthalmology. It’s unclear whether her five-year-old child will come to Canada. The husband is in a Dhaka jail awaiting trial.
Student sues Carleton for broken nose
Skidmore didn’t file his claim until four years later
A former Carleton University student who was “viciously and brutally assaulted” inside a campus dorm is suing the school for failing to protect his safety.
In a case that could force every university to ramp up security, David Skidmore claims Carleton is just as responsible for his broken nose and lingering bouts of depression as the two students who allegedly attacked him.
“It was a terrifying experience,” says his lawyer, Kevin Wolf. “Things like that should never happen on a university campus.”
What happened on Sept. 12, 2003, was no doubt traumatic. A first-year student at the time, Skidmore says he was punched, kicked and knocked unconscious after coming to the aid of a female neighbour who was “being harrassed” by two other students.
But his lawsuit—which demands $750,000 from his assailants and the school—begs the obvious question: what more could Carleton have done to prevent such random fisticuffs?
In his statement of claim, which has yet to be tested in court, Skidmore accuses the university of a laundry list of negligence: failing to provide a “reasonably safe” residence, failing to “employ adequate security,” failing to repair a broken lock on the Stormont House door, and failing to foresee the violent tendencies of his two attackers, both of whom were off-campus students visiting the residence “illegally.”
But in its statement of defence, the university insists that campus security was more than adequate, and if anyone is to blame for Skidmore’s injuries (apart from the other two students) it is Skidmore himself. In fact, the school claims he was intoxicated that night, threw the first punch, and taunted his attackers with homophobic slurs.
Now 24, Skidmore is a security guard at Canada’s Wonderland. When asked why he waited so many years to file this lawsuit, Wolf says his client hoped the physical pain and psychological trauma would eventually pass—but neither has.
“His family are not litigious people, and they are not pursuing a frivolous claim,” he says. “Money is not the motivating factor. The family wants answers.”
