Hate motivated stabbing attack left 3 injured at Ontario university

WATERLOO, Ontario, Canada - A -year-old man has been arrested and charged after he allegedly stabbed three people in a philosophy class at the University of Waterloo on Wednesday afternoon, in what police are calling a hate-motivated attack based on gender expression and identity in the college town approximately 70 miles west of Toronto, Canada.

Geovanny Villalba-Aleman allegedly entered a 0-person Philosophy class, asked the professor about the subject of the class, and then attacked her with two large knives. Two students, a 19-year old man and a 20-year old woman, were also injured when they tried to intervene. All were taken to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The class, “Philosophy 202: Gender Issues” is described in the University of Waterloo course calendar as a “Philosophical analysis of issues relating to sex/gender.” It says students will explore questions like: “What, if anything, is the difference between sex and gender? How much of a role do facts about biology play in our ideas about sex and gender? How many sexes are there? What ethical issues arise for us in vir- tue of our gender?”

Villalba-Aleman, an international student from Ecuador who recently graduate from the university, has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault, four counts of assault with a weapon, two counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and mischief under $5,000. He remains in police custody.

Friends of Villalba-Aleman say he struggled to make friends and rarely spoke up except to talk about how much he disliked LGBTQ people and Pride events

of the attack.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced the attack on Twitter, calling it “horrifying and unacceptable.”

“The fact that the stabbings at the University of Waterloo were hate-motivated is absolutely despicable. I strongly condemn this vile act. It is another reminder that we can never let misogynistic, anti-2SLGBTQI+ rhetoric escalate – because these words have real-life consequences,” Trudeau says.

The attack comes amid an alarming rise in threatening and intimidating protests against the queer and trans communities in Canada, but police believe the attacker was working alone.

Waterloo

Regional Police Chief Mark Crowell told a press conference that investigators are treating the attack as a “planned and targeted attack motivated by hate related to gender and expression gender identity.”

“It is both sad and disturbing that this attack has occured during pride month,” he says. “We hope that this attack does not diminish from these celebrations, but instead encourages us all to come together to continue to celebrate and continue to inspire love over hate.”

Hundreds attended a rally against hate Thursday afternoon on the university quad to attempt to heal the trauma

Statistics Canada has reported a spike in hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation, with 3 hate crimes recorded in 0 , up from a previous peak of in 0 .

Canada added protections for “gender identity or expression” to its hate crime laws in 0 .

While attacks on schools are relatively rare in Canada, one of the deadliest mass murders in Canadian history took place at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, when women were murdered in an engineering class, claiming that he was “fighting feminism.” The attack is commemorated annually in Canada as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

ROB SALERNO