February 21-2014
An middle school student in Illinois has been charged with a hate crime for attacking a 13-year-old Iranian-American in a school hallway and leabing the iranian with broken collarbones.
The student charged in Crystal Lake, suburb of Chicago, is African-American. Police said he tackled and repeatedly struck the Iranian, sending him to the hospital last Monday.
The student who was attacked, eighth-grader Omid Babakhani, 13, said he was walking with a friend to his locker when a familiar voice behind him said, “Hey, Persian,” then, “Do you want to fight a black man?”
Babakhani said the seventh-grader had in the past called him “Persian.” Omid said he told the other student he didn’t want to fight and then the boy called his mother a “rude name.”
Babakhani said he tried to nudge the boy away from him with his shoulder, but that the boy came up behind him, put him in a headlock, “slammed” him to the ground and repeatedly punched him.
Omid’s American mother, Melissa Babakhani, told the Chigago Tribune her son suffered two broken collarbones in the attack. She’s concerned that the injuries could hamper Omid, a competitive swimmer, in his athletic ambitions.
“(The attack was) out of the blue,” said the boy, who has been raised to walk away from taunts and fights. “I didn’t even expect it. I didn’t have time to defend myself,’’ he said. “By the time he took me down, my collarbones were already broken.”
He described the attacker as the same height as himself with a bit more muscle.
Melissa Babakhani said she and her husband, Ben, who came to the US from Iran 26 years ago, are distraught over what has happened. But an outpouring of affection and support from the school, the swim team and the community has helped, she said.
The student accused in the attack is being held in juvenile detention in anticipation of an appearance in juvenile court. His name was not released because he is charged as a juvenile.
“Something like this is unusual in any of our schools,” said Kathy Hinz, the local superintendent of schools. “We don’t see many fights and we don’t see many events certainly of the severity of what occurred.”