Photo:David Madison/Getty
David Madison/Getty
An Arab Muslim student was injured in a hit-and-run on the Stanford University campus that authorities are investigating as ahate crime.
The student said the driver allegedly “made eye contact with him, accelerated” and struck him, shouting “f— you and your people” out of the car window, the release said.
“I never imagined becoming the victim of a hate-driven attack,” the victim said in a statement he gaveABC News.“His hateful screams … still echo in my ears.”
The victim described the driver as a White male in his mid-twenties, with short, dirty-blonde hair and a short beard who was wearing a gray shirt and round framed eyeglasses, the release said.
The Toyota 4Runner is believed to be model year 2015 or newer. It had an exposed tire mounted to the rear center and a Toyota logo in the center of the wheel.
The SUV had a white California license plate with the letters M and J, with the M possibly being the first letter and the J in the middle.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, which is leading the investigation, said the California Highway Patrol called the incident a hate crime in its preliminary investigation,CNNreports.
The California Highway Patrol is continuing to investigate.
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The university’s Department of Public Safety released an alert on Friday night at 10:30 p.m. about the incident and then an update on Saturday.
Amid the tension, the victim released a statement from the hospital calling for calm and understanding.
“An individual who had previously shown animosity towards my community, struck me intentionally,” Omira said in his statement. “His hateful screams of ‘f— you and your people’ still echo in my ears as I grapple with the physical and emotional pain this incident has left in its wake.”
On Friday, Stanford president Richard Saller and provost Jenny Martinez released a statement saying they were “profoundly disturbed to hear this report of potentially hate-based physical violence on our campus. Violence on our campus is unacceptable. Hate-based violence is morally reprehensible.”
In his statement, Omira said Stanford was too slow to notify the community.
“The hours following the incident were agonizingly silent from the institution that I had trusted to be my safeguard,” Omira said in the statement, CNN reports. “It took a multitude of emails and a cry for acknowledgement to bring forth a personal response from the administration.”
A spokesman for the university told CNN that the school’s Department of Safety notified the campus as soon as it had gathered enough information from police.
The Department of Public Safety said “Stanford is continuing to work to provide a safe and secure campus environment in the context of heightened tensions related to the events in Israel and Gaza. This includes additional security that has been deployed at key locations on campus.”
Witnesses are encouraged to come forward to share any information they have about the incident.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the CHP at 650-779-2700 or the Department of Public Safety at 650-329-2413.
source: people.com
