[ad_1]
An 18-year-old Indiana University student was beaten repeatedly in the head with a folding knife by an attacker less than a mile from the Bloomington campus.
Daron Cummings/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Daron Cummings/AP
An 18-year-old Indiana University student was beaten repeatedly in the head with a folding knife by an attacker less than a mile from the Bloomington campus.
Daron Cummings/AP
Billy R. Davis, 56, was charged with stabbing a young passenger on a public bus in Bloomington, Indiana because he believed an 18-year-old Indiana University student to be “Chinese,” and was charged with a federal hate crime. was indicted on .
Davis, 56, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Evansville, Indiana, according to the Justice Department and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana. She also faces local charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery, and battery with deadly weapons.
The indictment alleges that Davis “deliberately physically harmed the victim and used a knife to attempt to do so because of the victim’s race and national origin.”
On January 11, as a student prepared to exit a public bus near the Bloomington campus, another passenger repeatedly hit her in the head with a folding knife. The attacker then walked away, leaving multiple stab wounds to the victim’s head.
Bloomington Police Department said surveillance footage from the bus showed the suspect and victim did not interact prior to the assault.
According to an affidavit shared with NPR, Davis told police that he not only stabbed the victim, but targeted the student because he assumed he was “Chinese.”
Davis’ attorney, Kyle Duggar, told NPR in January that Davis had a long history of “severe mental illness” and wanted help managing her condition on the day of the assault. filed Davis’ insanity defense.
On Saturday, he told NPR that he expects the state-level charges to be dismissed and Davis will be moved to federal custody.
In late January, Kathleen Delaney, an attorney representing the student’s family, said in a statement to NPR: healing. “
The unsolicited attack also shocked Asian Americans in the state and across the country, as the community grapples with reports of hate crimes against Asians that have risen in the United States over the past three years.
Davis has been charged with federal hate crimes, but Indiana’s own hate crime laws are under scrutiny.
In early January, local prosecutors told NPR that Davis was not charged with the hate crime because Indiana is one of four states without comprehensive laws.
David Goldenberg, Midwest regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the state’s lack of comprehensive hate crime laws has serious consequences.
“Prosecutors should prosecute these cases as hate crimes,” Goldenberg told NPR in January. It’s about making an impact.”
[ad_2]
Source link
