IUPD looks at potential hate crime

The IU Police Department is investigating an incident in which the word "Terrorist" was written outside a student's dorm room. The student is of Middle Eastern descent, according to the reports.\nAccording to police reports, the student left his Eigenmann Hall dorm room at about 12:30 a.m., Saturday, and returned at about 2 a.m. to find the word written in a dry-erase board marker on his door.\nThe 27-year-old student contacted his resident assistant, who then contacted the police, IU police spokesman, Lt. Jerry Minger said. Their procedure is to remove the graffiti as soon as possible from the site, he said. \n"He did seem quite upset according to the officers that responded," Minger said. "We advised him if he has any problems or has any idea who it was, to contact us immediately." \nMinger said there were no witnesses to the incident or other related problems reported that night, so the possibility that the vandalism could have been done by a visitor of the dorm has not been ruled out.\nMinger said they advised the victim and the residence hall staff to heighten their awareness and be on the look out for anyone who expresses negative racial or ethnic attitudes.\nThe University gets numerous hate-crime reports every year, but most tend to come in forms of e-mail or telephone calls. Minger said that vandalism cases are rare. \nIU has racial incident teams for students to report religious, racial or ethnically-based cases. \n"For a number of years the University has had in place counseling and response teams for incidents that appear to be rationally motivated," said Larry MacIntyre, director of IU media relations. "Every year there are some incidents -- some of which are serious and some of which prove to be not as serious."\nAccording to IU's Commission on Multicultural Understanding, half of all incidents reported to the racial incidents team in the 2004-2005 year took place in residence halls, and 3 percent of religious-bias incidents reported were anti-Muslim.\nMinger said because this incident was a crime of vandalism, thought to be against ethnicity, it is constituted as a hate crime.