Dear IUPUI Community,
On January 11, 2023, at approximately 4:45 p.m., an incident was reported to the Bloomington police department in which an 18-year-old Asian student at IUB was assaulted by a 56-year-old woman. The victim reported to the investigators that she had been riding the Bloomington Transit bus and had stood up to exit the bus; as she was standing and waiting for the bus doors to open, another passenger on the bus began to strike her repeatedly in the head, which resulted in immediate pain. An ambulance was then called immediately, and the victim was taken to the hospital. Once her wounds had been cleaned at the hospital, it was determined that the victim had approximately been stabbed 7 times in her head.
The footage showed that the suspect and victim had no interactions prior to the suspect stabbing the victim multiple times. When the attacker was interviewed by the police, she said that she targeted the student because “it would be one less person to blow up our country”.
As the Undergraduate Student Government at IUPUI, we stand in solidarity with the victim’s family and the student body at Indiana University Bloomington. While the incident did not happen on our campus, IUB represents part of the essence of IUPUI. We do not tolerate any form of racism in any form against anyone and we expect action steps to be taken, just as we will continue to support unity among our diverse community at IUPUI.
Incidents like this can be overwhelming and triggering. If you feel the need to talk to someone, please contact our CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) representatives, who will guide you through individual counseling or group sessions. In addition, please keep an eye on any notifications that might be sent from IU Notify via email and/or text. Finally, we recommend downloading the Guardian App to report any incident and to more easily reach the police.
For more information, please check the following website: https://protect.iu.edu/
In solidarity,
USG Executive Board