Colombian-Canadian family attacked by man with baseball bat shouting about Isis and terrorists
Video posted to Instagram shows the moments before the alleged attack
A Canadian man has been arrested after allegedly attacking a Colombian family with a baseball bat while accusing them of belonging to Isis.
St Thomas Police responded to a local mall parking lot after receiving reports that a man was attacking another man with a bat. The man fled before the officers arrived, police said, but the alleged victim's son was able to capture some of the incident on video.
Police told The Independent they were investigating whether the incident was a hate crime.
The alleged victim, Sergio Estepa, told CBC that the incident started when he and his partner went to the mall to meet their son after school. After the family was reunited, they said, they were approached by a man wielding a baseball bat.
In a video posted to Instagram by Mr Estepa's partner, Mari Zambranoa, a man wearing a black hoodie and carrying a bright green bat can be seen following them through the parking lot.
"Give me that phone,” he says. You're under arrest...You're a terrorist."
Seconds later, he begins yelling: “Terrorist! We got terrorists here!”
The man accuses the family of being "French terrorists," though Mr Estepa, who immigrated from Colombia, told CBC they were speaking Spanish at the time. In the video, Mr Estepa can be heard warning the man to stay away, but he seems to pay no mind.
“Isis! We have Isis right here! Isis!” the man yells.
He swings his bat and the camera drops suddenly. A woman can be heard screaming in the background. One of the victims sustained a cracked rib and extensive bruising, police said.
According to the family, only one witness stepped forward and offered to give a statement to police. She happened to be a former vice principal at their son's elementary school.
The alleged assailant, who is in his 30s and last lived in Toronto, has been charged with aggravated assault and three counts of assault with a weapon. He has been remanded in police custody pending a hearing at a later date.
Police-reported hate crimes in Canada increased by 3 percent last year, according to Statistics Canada. The increase was largely due to a rise in crimes against South Asians and Arabs or West Asians, the Jewish population, and LGBTQ people.
"It's disturbing,” St Thomas Sergeant Brian Carnegie told CBC of the latest alleged attack. “This was an isolated and quite disturbing incident. Hopefully it remains isolated.”