Article updated at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 20, 2015
Campus police at San Diego State University were on the lookout Thursday for a man who assaulted a Muslim student, pushing her, tearing off her head scarf and besetting her with racist epithets.
The non-injury hate crime occurred about 1:45 p.m. Thursday in a parking lot off Zura Way, on the eastern side of the campus.
The unidentified assailant — described as a thin, black-haired, roughly 5-foot-11-inch white man in his 20s with green or hazel eyes — shoved and jostled the woman while making threatening and insulting remarks, according to campus police, who released an artist’s sketch of the perpetrator this evening.
Carrie Hogan, a detective with the SDSU Police Department, declined to disclose a suspected motive for the crime, citing concerns about compromising the agency’s investigation into the incident.
The San Diego office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported that the assault stemmed from hostility about the victim’s religion or ethnicity, as evidenced by the man’s angry statements and the fact that he pulled off her hijab, or traditional head veil.
A CAIR statement suggested that the crime “may be related to the backlash against the American Muslim community since the recent terror attacks in Paris.”
Following the attack, the man, who was wearing jeans, a gray sweater and white shoes, fled to the south toward another parking area, according to SDSU police.
—City News Service
