Sean Christopher Urbanski, who is white, is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Richard Collins III in the early morning hours of May 20, 2017. Witnesses said he yelled bizarre comments at Collins before stabbing him in the chest, police said.
The judge said prosecutors did not prove the killing was motivated by hate, the Baltimore Sun reported. The first-degree murder charge is expected to go to the jury on Wednesday, the Sun reported.
That Facebook page was taken offline after the killing.
In 2017, Maryland State Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks said authorities “need something probably more than just a Facebook posting” to have the killing be considered a hate crime.
A bright future ahead
Collins, 23, was killed just three days before his graduation from nearby Bowie State University and two days after he was commissioned as a US Army lieutenant.
He “represented in every way possible the very best of this community,” Alsobrooks had said.
“He was already a person who had accomplished so much, more than many of us will accomplish in a whole lifetime,” she had said. “And so, it was not just the case that he was going to be somebody great.”
At the time, University of Maryland President Wallace Loh said the university community needed to do more to “nurture a climate — on the campus and beyond — where we stand against hate, we fight against hate crimes, and we reaffirm the values that define us as a university.”
Loh said after the stabbing the community was left “shocked, saddened, and angered.”
A strange encounter
The two men didn’t know each other before the May 2017 encounter, officials said.
Collins was on the University of Maryland campus visiting friends. Urbanski approached their group around 3 a.m. and began yelling bizarre commands at Collins, police said.
According to a witness, Urbanski told Collins: “Step left, step left if you know what’s good for you,” Mitchell said.
“The victim looked at him puzzled with the other friends of his and said ‘No,'” Mitchell said. “It was then that (the suspect) stabbed the victim in his chest.”
Collins fell backward and his friends tried to help him before university officials arrived and performed CPR. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
CNN’s Julia Jones contributed to this report.
Source : CNN
