Officials in Maryland have charged 12 students with offenses including hate crimes for allegedly luring a gay man to an apartment off campus, holding him prisoner and breaking his rib while beating him.
A statement from the Salisbury police department said one of the accused, all students at Salisbury University who have since been suspended, set up a fake account on a dating app to entice the victim with a promise of sex with a 16-year-old.
Detectives say that when the man arrived at the apartment, a group of “college-aged males appeared from the back bedrooms” and forced him on to a chair in the middle of the living room. They slapped, punched, kicked and spat on him while calling him derogatory names and preventing him from leaving, police said in documents also charging them with assault and false imprisonment.
The incident came to light only after two witnesses told campus police they had seen cellphone footage of the reported incident, which took place on Maryland’s Eastern Shore on 15 October.
The victim did not come forward, and was contacted by police after they traced his license plate from footage showing his car driving away from the apartment.
Steve Rakow, attorney for one of the accused, told the Associated Press that the authorities’ account of the incident was wrong, and that the only reason the victim did not file a complaint was because he was caught preparing to have sex with a teenage boy. The age of consent in Maryland is 16, while the age of the victim was not given.
“Let me just set the record straight – this is not a hate crime,” Rakow said in an email.
University officials said the 12 had been suspended, and that the school was cooperating with the law enforcement investigation. The university “condemns all acts of violence”, a spokesperson said.
The university’s president, Carolyn Ringer Lepre, meanwhile, said she was creating a taskforce focused on LGBTQ+ inclusiveness.
“Our community is reeling from an act of visceral hate,” Lepre said in a statement posted to social media. “We are witnessing a campus filled with anguish that something so unspeakable could happen from within the community that we all love.”
Rakow, the attorney, accused the university of jumping to conclusions by suspending the students before speaking with them.
“Apparently, due process doesn’t apply to academia,” he said.
Court papers say the victim, who suffered extensive bruising as well as a broken rib, “never notified law enforcement of the attack in fear for his safety due to retaliation and being threatened by the attackers”.
The episode is among a rising number of hate-related crimes and incidents fueled at least in part, experts say, by a divided and toxic political environment.
In Michigan, officials said on Monday that a group of Nazi protesters waved swastika flags outside an American Legion post where a community theater group was performing The Diary of Anne Frank, about a Dutch schoolgirl forced into hiding with her Jewish family in German-occupied Amsterdam during the second world war. She was captured and died in a concentration camp in 1945, aged 15.
Livingston county deputies were called to a disturbance at the venue in Howell at about 7.45pm on Saturday, and encountered five masked protesters who were “were asked to leave the property and did”, Sheriff Michael Murphy said.
The Fowlerville Community Theatre group said in a statement posted to Facebook that the performers were upset by what happened outside.
“Although some were understandably shaken, they pulled together and finished the performance with strength and professionalism,” the statement said. “As a theatre, we want to make people feel and think. We hope that by presenting Anne’s story, we can help prevent the atrocities of the past from happening again.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
