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		</div><h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">Jury selection commences as hate-crime trial in the killing of a Black student on Univ of Maryland campus set to begin</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">Sean Urbanski, a White student at the University of Maryland fatally stabbed Richard Collins III, 23, who is black, at a bus stop on the UM College Park in May, 2017</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">Prosecutors say Sean Urbanski, 24, targeted the only black person at a bus stop. Urbanski’s lawyers say he was &#8220;out-of- his-mind drunk&#8221;</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">Prosecutors link Sean Urbanski, assailant to the “Alt-Reich,” a racist Facebook group that shows extreme bias against minorities – women, Latinos, members of the Jewish faith, and especially African-Americans</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">Before the fatal stabbing, Urbanski allegedly stormed toward the victim bellowing, “Step left, step left if you know what’s good for you”</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">2nd Lt. Richard Collins III, defiantly said, “No” </span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;"> Collins a young counter intelligence officer, due to graduate from Bowie State Univ three days later, died from the injuries</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">Urbanski is charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">He faces a possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted</span></strong></h6>
<h6><strong><span style="color: #4a3737;">The trial began with jury selection on Monday</span></strong></h6>
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<h6 class="font--body font-copy color-gray-darkest ma-0 pad-bottom-md undefined"><img class="" src="https://i0.wp.com/konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/alleged-neo-nazi-sean-urbanski-left-killed-lt-richard-collins-in-college-parkmd-on-saturday-may-20.png?zoom=1.25&#038;resize=620%2C335&#038;ssl=1" alt="Alleged Neo-Nazi, Sean Urbanski [left], killed Lt. Richard Collins in College park,MD on Saturday, May 20.png" width="724" height="391" /><strong>Sean Urbanski,[left], has been charged with the murder and a hate crime of Richard Wilbur Collins III [right], at the University of Maryland, College Park on Saturday, May 20, 2017</strong></h6>
<p class="font--body font-copy color-gray-darkest ma-0 pad-bottom-md undefined"><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Sean Urbanski of Severna Park, Maryland went on trial at i&#8217;s parents leave the PG County District Court in Upper Marlboro Monday, charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a Bowie State student in May 2017.<br />
Urbanski, 24, a a white University of Maryland student was charged with stabbing a black newly commissioned US Army lieutenant Richard Wilbur Collins III to death on the morning of May 20, 2017 at the University of Maryland, College Park.<br />
</span>Collins had been visiting friends on the College Park campus on the night of his death. He was waiting at a bus stop with two friends when Urbanski approached them.<br />
The surveillance video of the stabbing is clear, according to prosecutors: <a href="https://konniemoments.com/2017/05/22/feds-probing-maryland-students-murder-as-possible-hate-crime-after-attacker-sean-urbanski-is-linked-to-alt-reich-facebook-group/">Sean Urbanski</a> stands in the shadows before approaching a group of three college students at a University of Maryland bus stop.<br />
He walks past another man, who, like Urbanski, is white. He bypasses an Asian woman. And then he confronts the only black person in the group.<br />
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<p data-page="1">Three friends were waiting at a bus stop on the University of Maryland’s campus around 3 a.m. on a Saturday when a stranger approached them, screaming.<br />
<span style="color: var(--color-text);">&#8220;Step left, step left if you know what&#8217;s best for you,&#8221; the 22-year-old white man told the friends, according to police.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">&#8220;No,&#8221; one of the friends, a black man, said before the white man plunged a knife into his chest.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">After fatally stabbing Collins, Urbanski folded the knife, slipped it into his pocket and sat down on a bench until police arrived, a prosecutor has said.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Police arrested Sean Urbanski at the bus stop, 50 feet from where 23-year-old Richard Collins III, was dying.</span></p>
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<h6><b><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-338397" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Relatives-put-up-portrait-of-Richard-Collins-III.jpg" alt="Relatives put up portrait of Richard Collins III.JPG" width="1356" height="863" /></b><strong>A portrait of Richard Collins III, center, standing with his aunt and uncle, was displayed at his 2017 memorial service</strong></h6>
<p class="font--body font-copy color-gray-darkest ma-0 pad-bottom-md undefined"><span style="color: var(--color-text);">In the the District Court in Upper Marlboro, Prince George’s County prosecutors intend to argue that Collins’ killing was a hate crime carried out by a man biased against black people.<br />
Urbanski liked a Facebook group called &#8220;Alt-Reich: Nation&#8221; and saved at least six photographs of racist memes on his phone, according to prosecutors.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">In counter arguments, defense attorneys are expected to argue that </span><a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-hate-crime-dismissal-20181114-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">there is no evidence of a racist motive</a><span style="color: var(--color-text);"> for what occurred at the bus stop that night in May 2017.<br />
Witnesses told police that Urbanski was drunk and screaming incoherently when he approached the friends, one of his lawyers has said.<br />
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<div style="width: 212px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img class=" alignleft" src="https://i2.wp.com/konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/richard-collins2.png?zoom=1.25&#038;resize=559%2C979&#038;ssl=1" alt="Richard Collins2.png" width="202" height="354" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Army 2nd Lt. Richard Collins, 23, was commissioned shortly before his death</p></div>
<p class="font--body font-copy color-gray-darkest ma-0 pad-bottom-md undefined"><span style="color: var(--color-text);">However, the killing coincided with a surge in hate on U.S. college campuses. Reports of white supremacists posting fliers and other propaganda on campuses more than tripled in 2017, according to a figures released by the Anti-Defamation League.<br />
In August 2017, torch-toting white supremacists marched through the University of Virginia&#8217;s campus on the eve of a rally that led to violent clashes and bloodshed.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Urbanski is charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted. Jury selection is scheduled to start December 9.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Defense lawyers earlier failed to persuade Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Hill Jr. to exclude the racist memes and Facebook group as trial evidence.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">One of the memes &#8220;advocates violence against blacks,&#8221; while another has an image of a noose, a handgun and poison, a prosecutor has said.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">During a hearing in June, defense attorney William Brennan cited a New York Times article in which an administrator of the Facebook group said it was satire.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Hunter College sociology professor Jessie Daniels, an expert in online racism, said pushing boundaries between parody and harmful hate is “baked into the far-right culture.”<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Daniels said some of the memes on Urbanski’s phone are somewhat hard to decipher because they contain “multiple layers of inside jokes.” Others are overtly racist, she added.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">“Just saying something is playing with humor doesn’t give it a free pass,” said Daniels.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">“Online white supremacy has real consequences,” Daniels said. “Words have power, and they can cause people real harm.”<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Prosecutors wanted to call Daniels as an expert witness to testify about her research and the material from Urbanski’s phone.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">The judge, however, ruled out any testimony by Daniels at the trial. Urbanski’s lawyers said prosecutors didn’t give them adequate notice of her testimony, arguing Daniels would mislead the jury.</span></p>
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<h6 class="font--body font-copy color-gray-darkest ma-0 pad-bottom-md undefined"><span style="color: var(--color-text);"><img class="alignnone wp-image-338410" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Sean-Urbanskis-parents-1.jpg" alt="Sean Urbanski's parents 1.JPG" width="1064" height="803" /><strong>Sean Urbanski&#8217;s parents [center and right], are seen leave the District Court in Upper Marlboro Monday, Dec. 9 after a judge ruled he be held without bail.</strong></span><span style="color: var(--color-text);"><img class="" src="https://i0.wp.com/konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/sean-urbanski5.jpg?zoom=1.25&#038;resize=620%2C594&#038;ssl=1" alt="Sean Urbanski5.jpg" width="693" height="663" /><strong>The killer, Sean Urbanski, [center], then a student at UMUC has been linked with a Neo-Nazi hate group</strong></span></h6>
<p><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Collins was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army shortly before his death, was visiting friends at the University of Maryland on the night he was killed.<br />
He was days from graduating from Bowie State University, a historically black college, three days later.</p>
<p></span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Prosecutors say Urbanski, then a University of Maryland student, stabbed Collins because he was the only black person at the bus stop that night. His friends were a white male and an Asian female. Brennan has said there&#8217;s no evidence Collins was &#8220;selected&#8221; because he was black.<br />
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</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">The victim&#8217;s parents, Dawn and Richard Collins Jr. created a foundation in their son’s name. In a video posted on the foundation’s website, Dawn Collins said they were proud to see their son receive his Army commission.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">In one of their last conversations, her son said, “Mom, I made it, and the world is going to know my name,’” she recalled.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Judge Lawrence Hill Jr. ruled Urbanski be held without bail and Jurors are expected to hear opening statements for Sean Urbanski’s trial later this week.</span></p>
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Hate-crime trial in the 2017 killing of a black student Army officer by Univ Of Maryland student begins with jury selection – Sean Urbanski is charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime in death of Lt. Richard Collins
