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A 25-year-old white man who stabbed a black student to death during a chance encounter on the main campus of the University of Maryland in 2017 in what prosecutors called a racially motivated hate crime was convicted on Thursday to life imprisonment.
The man, Sean C. Urbanski, was convicted in December 2019 by a jury in Prince George County, Maryland, of first degree murder in the death of Richard W. Collins III.
Mr Collins, 23, was days away from graduating from nearby Bowie State University and had recently been appointed a second lieutenant in the military. He was preparing to move to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., to train to defend the country from chemical attack.
“He was about to do great things,” Dawn Collins, Mr Collins’ mother, said at a press conference Thursday after the sentencing.
The 2017 meeting between the men was brief and violent, and the murder cast a veil over what would have been a festive time on both campuses.
According to University of Maryland police, in the early hours of May 20, Mr. Collins and two friends were standing at a bus stop outside a dormitory on the Maryland campus when they heard Mr. Urbanski, then aged. 22 years old, screaming. They watched him as he approached them.
“Not on the left, not on the left if you know what’s best for you,” Urbanski said, according to police. Mr Collins said no, and Mr Urbanski plunged a three to four inch silver blade into his chest, police said a witness told them.
When officers arrived, they found Mr. Urbanski, a University of Maryland student, sitting on a bench a few yards from where witnesses said he had just stabbed Mr. Collins, said officials. Mr Collins was pronounced dead after 4 a.m., just three days before his expected graduation date from Bowie State.
At the time, Mr Urbanski’s attack did not qualify as a hate crime under Maryland law, officials said. Mr Collins’ parents were successful in lobbying to change the law, which took effect in October. Now, a suspect’s past activity, and not just rhetoric at the scene, can be taken as evidence of intent. This new law is named after Mr. Collins.
Under Maryland law, offenders sentenced to life in prison are eligible for parole after 15 years, according to Prince George County state attorney Aisha Braveboy. William Brennan, a lawyer for Mr Urbanski, said his client may be eligible for parole sooner, given the time already served and his good behavior.
After the attack, officials said they were investigating the episode as a possible hate crime.
Mr Urbanski was a member of a Facebook group that had trafficked anti-black and sexist memes. The group was shut down after the attack and its administrator, Alex Goodman, said it was satire. “Nothing is meant to be true,” Mr. Goodman told The New York Times. “I condemn those who believe in white supremacy.”
At Thursday’s press conference, a prosecutor in charge of the case said Mr Urbanski had had wide access to such messages.
“The number of racist and hateful memes that were on her phone was just confusing,” said Jonathan Church, Deputy State Counsel for Prince George.
Mr. Brennan said during sentencing that his client had “a great deal of remorse” and that he deeply regretted what he had done.
Elizabeth Urbanski, the mother of Mr. Urbanski, expressed the “horror and devastation” of her son’s crime. She told Mr. Collins’ parents, according to The Associated Press, “Your son Richard should be here, and it’s my son Sean’s fault that he’s not.”
At the press conference, Ms Collins said her son looked forward to a bright future.
“He had aspired to be the next General Colin Powell,” Ms. Collins said, referring to the retired four-star general and former secretary of state. “And there was nothing that was going to stop him.”
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