A grand jury on Tuesday indicted a white University of Maryland college student on a hate crime charge in the stabbing death of a black US Army lieutenant, authorities said.
Sean Urbanski is accused of killing Richard Collins III in the predawn hours of May 20 at a campus bus stop. Collins attended nearby Bowie State University.
Urbanski was a member of a Facebook group called “Alt-Reich,” which spews hatred toward minorities and “especially African-Americans,” police said at the time.
Collins “was killed because of his race,” Angela D. Alsobrooks, state’s attorney for Prince George’s County, told reporters.
“There was lots of digital evidence that we could look at to get a sense for the motive in this case,” Alsobrooks said.
She added: “It came from his phone, computer ….There was some activity on Facebook.”
Collins been recently commissioned as an officer, and was three days away from graduating. The two men did not know each other, officials said.
In July, a separate grand jury indicted Urbanski on a common-law murder charge, which covers first-and-second-degree murder.
Police said Urbanski yelled bizarre commands at Collins, who was with friends on the Maryland campus, witnesses told police. “He said to the victim, ‘Step left if you know what’s good for you,'” witnesses said, according to University of Maryland police Chief David Mitchell.
Collins “looked at him puzzled with the other friends and said, ‘No,’ “Mitchell said.
“It was then that (the suspect) stabbed the victim in the chest,” Mitchell said then.
Urbanski’s attorney had said his client was intoxicated at the time of the alleged crime.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Urbanski has the same attorney.