WATERBURY, Conn. — A 12-year-old girl has been charged with a hate crime following an alleged attack against two Muslim classmates.
Waterbury Police say four seventh-grade students were involved in an altercation at Wallace Middle School earlier this month that left two 13-year-old twin sisters injured, NBC reports. According to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the students had their hijabs pulled off and were kicked and punched in the girls’ locker room during gym. Photos show one of the sisters with a bloody nose and the other with abrasions on her neck.
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Police confirmed in a statement Friday that authorities determined “the altercation was motivated by religion and/or ethnicity, meeting the legal definition of a hate crime.” The involved 12-year-old was charged in juvenile court with intimidation based on bigotry and bias in the first and second degree. A second student has been referred to a youth diversionary program.
Days before the attack, the sisters reported threats by the same student after she allegedly “dragg(ed) her finger across her neck in a death sign,” CAIR wrote in a letter to Waterbury officials. Waterbury Public Schools Superintendent Darren Schwartz confirmed there was an incident on Feb. 28 that “stemmed from a misconception that the twins were talking about the offender in class, which was deemed to be untrue.”
“The teacher immediately mediated between the students and offered further support, which was declined by all students,” Schwartz wrote in an email to CNN.
Farhan Memon, chair of CAIR-CT, is calling on Waterbury Public Schools to implement mandatory schoolwide anti-bullying training focused on racial and religious discrimination.
“What reportedly happened to these two girls is unacceptable, and the district has a legal and moral obligation to take decisive action to prevent further harm,” said Memon. “This attack on Muslim students is unacceptable and reflects a broader pattern of bullying and discrimination that must be urgently addressed.”
In its annual civil rights report released last week, CAIR said it received 8,658 complaints of Islamophobia last year — the most ever recorded by the organization.
