In the early hours of March 30, a 21-year-old student was assaulted by a stranger near the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The perpetrator slammed the victim to the ground while making derogatory remarks about the LGBTQ+ community.
The police investigated the incident as a hate crime and have since apprehended a suspect.
Police and eyewitnesses say that at around 2 a.m. that Sunday night, the victim, with a couple of friends, was walking near Jorgensen Hall at the university when an unknown man approached them. The unidentified man said, “Do you know he’s gay?” referring to the victim. He then reportedly slammed the victim to the ground while using a homophobic slur before running away.
A security camera captured the assailant, who is a white male with short brown hair, wearing a black t-shirt, pair of jeans, and brown cowboy boots.
The university police launched an investigation, with the charge being 3rd-degree assault. They said that the incident was an anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime under both state and federal law.
Police made images from security footage public, and those images were seen by an attorney who had 21-year-old Cale Wacker as a client. Wacker is not a student and doesn’t work at the university. The attorney advised Wacker to turn himself in. The police eventually charged 21-year-old Cale Wacker with the crime on the morning of April 3.
Wacker is currently facing charges of third-degree assault with a hate crime enhancement. The hate crime enhancement upgraded what would have been a class 1 misdemeanor to a class 4 felony. The judge presiding over the case set his bond at $5,000, and he is scheduled to appear in court on May 8.
The incident has left many students shaken.
“I thought that college campuses in general are pretty inclusive since a lot of them have specific offices for diversity and inclusion,” Alyssa Holsey told Channel 8 news. “But I guess that doesn’t apply to the students that actually go here.”
LGBTQ+ student organizers are also calling on the university to do more to protect marginalized groups.
UNL senior B Littman, a student representative for the Chancellor’s Commission on the Status of Gender and Sexual Identities, wants to continue hosting open dialogues with LGBTQ+ groups on campus regarding the incident.
“Some people might forget that there was hate present, so it’s important to make it clear that hate has no place; we’re going to stand up against this, no matter what happens,” Littman told The Lincoln Journal Star.
UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett released a statement following the incident, calling the act reprehensible.
“Actions such as those described to police yesterday are reprehensible and will be addressed through the appropriate legal channels,” Bennett said in the email.
Despite attempts by the university to reassure students and express support, some student organizations, especially LGBTQ+ groups, found the actions to be a “lackluster response.”
UNL reportedly did not directly reach out to any LGBTQ+ student organizations to provide support or resources.
Tensions have also arisen between the university and LGBTQ+ groups on campus after UNL closed its Office of Diversity and Inclusion in response to threats from the White House to cut federal funding.
“The general consensus that students all felt based on the response was that it wasn’t giving tangible steps for our students to feel looked out for and taken care of,” Littman said.
“We, as the students, really would just like to see a bit of care, support and appreciation, knowing that as a group, just all of our students as a whole, that our university cares about us, it wants to protect us,” Littman said.
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