Was assault a hate crime?

COLUMBUS – Columbus police say they have no evidence to suggest a neighborhood fight, which ended with a white woman tased and a Somali woman punched in the face, constituted a hate crime but a group that advocates for Muslims wants it investigated as one.

“There is no evidence at this time suggesting the incident involved any type of bias which would constitute the incident being investigated as a hate crime,” police spokesman Sgt. Rich Weiner said in a statement released Monday.


The incident began with allegations of a child being abused and a possible kidnapping at 9:21 p.m. Saturday, June 3, when a 911 caller told a dispatcher a woman was making threats to the caller, accusing her of having the woman’s child, and hitting the child with a shoe.

A separate call from another person stated someone had kidnapped her son because they saw her hitting her son, and claiming that she had been punched in the face.

In a call at 9:33, a woman is heard threatening someone with a Taser, followed by sounds of a struggle and what maybe the sound of a Taser being deployed. A witness calls three minutes later and describes the scene.

NOTE: Audio in this article contains sounds of violence that may be disturbing to some listeners

According to representatives from the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a third woman, who reportedly intervened to protect a Somali woman from a white man – apparently the husband of a woman identified by WBNS 10-TV as Samantha Morales, who had been hit with the Taser — was beaten unconscious, resulting in facial fractures and the loss of several teeth.

The victim, identified by the television station as Rahma Warsame, claims the alleged attacker screamed “you all will be shipped back to Africa” prior to hitting her, according to CAIR, whose attorneys are representing Warsame.

Officers arrived at the scene and found a woman lying face down in the doorway of 2800 Pinellas Court and a man identifying himself as her husband standing nearby who told officers she had been assaulted with some kind of device similar to a Taser, Weiner said.

A man identifying himself as Ricky Boice, had told a dispatcher the same thing a few minutes earlier.

Weiner says officers also saw a woman sitting on the steps of 2806 Pinellas Court bleeding from her mouth.

She informed officers she had been assaulted by Boice, who was detained at the scene but not charged, according to Weiner.

“The fact that the perpetrator was not taken into custody and was not charged raises serious concerns and sends a very dangerous message,” said Jennifer Nimer, executive director of CAIR-Columbus and one of the attorneys for the victim. “We are asking law enforcement to investigate this as a hate crime and to bring the perpetrator to justice immediately before he commits another act of violence.”

After interviewing multiple victims and witnesses at the scene, Weiner said no arrests were made.

Faced with a lack of physical evidence and conflicting stories by parties at the scene, Weiner says officers were unable to determine who the primary aggressor was in the incident.

Two women were transported to area hospitals for injuries which Weiner said did not rise beyond the level of a misdemeanor assault.

The parties were referred to the City Prosecutor’s Office, which Weiner says is standard protocol when probable cause for an arrest cannot be established.