He was listening to a podcast and didn’t pay them attention. at about 4:30, turning onto Coloniale Ave., when a group of young people came up behind him. Nicolas, who didn’t want his last name published since he fears it would help the attacker find him, was walking home from work on Marie-Anne St. It’s not just Atlanta: in a year of skyrocketing attacks on Asians, Montreal has its own serious incidents that many believe are hate crimes, but unresolved ones, including the deaths of two people in a double hit-and-run last September.įor Nicolas, the pepper-spray-type attack last Thursday was much worse than anything the 34-year-old has experienced in a lifetime living in Montreal, but it follows anecdotes he’s heard since the pandemic began, including someone getting spat on in the metro. After six Asian-American women died this week in a targeted mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, a rally is planned for this Sunday in Montreal. The frustrations are growing quickly, particulary for Asian Montrealers. The short saga illustrates the mysteries around how and when Montreal-area police decide to treat crimes as potential hate crimes, a murky area that came under the spotlight this week with new pressure to revamp the city police force's approach, including a new motion before City Council that the mayor said she’s considering. He says he thinks it came about only after media attention around his attack on Monday. They didn’t inform Nicolas of the change. “The victim himself is of Asian origin, and he thinks that it may be a hate crime considering his origin, and that’s why the hate crime investigators will consider this possibility,” she said.
“The investigation, of course, evolved,” said a Montreal police spokesperson on Tuesday.īut she went on to say that the move was sparked by Nicolas’s original interview. Not much, by police’s account-they simply decided to act on Nicolas’s belief he was singled out for being Asian. On Tuesday, they changed their minds, bringing in the hate crimes squad.
On Monday, police told media they weren’t considering it a potential hate crime. A week ago, a Korean Montrealer named Nicolas was walking home from work when a stranger sprayed him with a gluey, burning substance, leaving him temporarily blinded and crawling on the sidewalk for help.
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