Victim’s mother seeks witnesses to serious assault in University District
Following an assault in the University District in which a Queen’s student sustained serious injuries, the victim’s family is asking for any witnesses to come forward and contact Kingston Police to assist in the investigation.
On the evening spanning Friday, September 18th to Saturday, September 19th, at around 1 a.m., the victim, his roommate and several other friends had gone out for the evening, and were walking back home when they passed by a house party near the corner of Frontenac and Johnson St. At that time, there were multiple people both inside and outside the residence, and the victim got into a verbal altercation with several of the partiers. The altercation turned physical and between six and seven people allegedly started to attack the victim, kicking him in the head multiple times.
The victim was eventually able to walk away, but later went to hospital with serious injuries. According to the victim’s mother, whose name Kingstonist is withholding in order to protect the victim, he required surgery to his jaw, which was broken in two places. The victim also suffered a broken nose and a severe concussion in the incident.
The victim’s mother says he had just transferred from another university and had only been in Kingston a few weeks. She says that the injuries have made it impossible for him to continue his schooling for at least a semester, and that he will be forced to go home in order to recover.
She is hoping that coming forward will prompt a witness to contact Kingston Police to provide additional information. “My son is a big guy, he’s 6’4,’” she said, “and after he was attacked he walked away. Maybe they haven’t come forward because they thought they had just seen a guy get in a fight and walk away, and maybe people who witnessed it didn’t know the extent of his injuries.”
The victim’s mother also says she hopes coming forward will prompt officials to do something to prevent it from happening again. “That wasn’t the first fight, so clearly there’s an issue in that area,” she says, pointing out that a video taken earlier that night in the same area allegedly shows another altercation taking place. “To me this was really senseless and this should never happen again. Something needs to be done with regards to all the partying, I don’t know how you fix that.”
She says they have been in touch with Queen’s University, and they have been nothing but supportive, having received phone calls of support from both the Dean and the Assistant Dean of her son’s Faculty. Kingstonist has reached out to Queen’s University regarding the incident.
Kingston Police Media Relations Officer Ash Gutheinz confirms that the incident continues to be investigated but that, to date, no charges have been laid due to a lack of witnesses coming forward. The case is now being led by Kingston Police Detective Joel Fisher. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact him at 613-549-4660, or [email protected], citing incident #34955.