NAACP Condemns Racist’s Murder Of Bowie Student

Baltimore

The NAACP mourns the loss of Richard Collins III, a Bowie State University student stabbed to death three days before his college graduation by an alleged member of an “Alt-Right” hate group and student at the University of Maryland.

The NAACP sends condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Collins, and to the entire Bowie State University community, who mourn the loss of such a positive and accomplished young man who was brutality killed in the prime of life due to hate-inspired terrorism.

“When individuals occupying our nation’s highest office spew hate-filled rhetoric and unapologetically associate with and staff the White House with white supremacists, our entire nation drinks from the same poisonous well,” said NAACP Chairman Leon W. Russell. “We must continually speak out against the mythology of racism and its accompanying rhetoric and replace it with a message that unites us around justice and the truth,” he added.

Sean Christopher Urbanski, a 22-year-old from Severna Park in Anne Arundel County, was arrested and charged with murder in the death of Mr. Collins.  He is being held without bond and the FBI is investigating the killing as a possible hate crime.

Urbanski was allegedly a member of a right-wing hate group called “Alt-Reich,” one of many emerging White Supremacist groups, spurred on through the racially divisive rhetoric associated with Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.

According to estimates from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), over 260,000 hate crimes occur annually in the United States. SPLC notes that in the month following the 2016 presidential election, there were 1,094 bias-related incidents in the United States.