Racist comments that led to charges against a University of Vermont student two years ago included a statement that “I really want to kill all the n—–s at this school.”
The remark by Wesley Richter, made over the phone within earshot of other students in the Howe Library on campus, was included in a UVM police affidavit that has just been released as a result of a recent state Supreme Court ruling.
A misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge against Richter, now 23, was dropped soon after the incident because a Superior Court judge did not find probable cause. The police statement in the case, which the judge had ordered sealed, was eventually released following a lawsuit brought by Jacob Oblak, at the time a student at Vermont Law School.
In October 2017, UVM police received an email from a student who said that earlier in the day, another student talking on a cellphone near him was making possible threats of a mass killing of members of the UVM community.
The student on the phone, whom police later identified as Richter, complained about diversity classes at UVM, saying they were taught by a bunch of “racist white people” to a bunch of “n——,” the affidavit said. He said he hated UVM and continued uttering racial slurs in regard to certain groups, saying he wanted to kill them.
The student who overheard Richter reported that within a few minutes the caller noticed that he may have been overheard and quickly left the library.
“It’s possible that this man was just someone with racist opinions and attitudes on which he would never act, but the enthusiasm and confidence with which he said these threats seemed genuine to me,” the student wrote in his email to police. “I sincerely fear he may attempt to commit an act of violence against someone at the university.”
Using a log of all the students who had entered the multimedia room where the conversation took place, an IP address from the computer the caller was seen using and a physical description of him, police were able to identify Richter as the student making the racist comments.
When police found Richter on campus to speak with him, he told the officers that he was talking to his mom on the phone that day. He then quoted the university’s code of conduct which says that hate speech has to be directed at a single person to be against school rules, according to the affidavit. He also asked officers if they were familiar with a particular court case, and then read a ruling off his phone that said something to the effect that his speech was protected.
Richter then gave police business cards of two different lawyers, telling the officers he does not speak to police without a lawyer present.
Before he left the interview, Richter asked the officers if there was any audio evidence of the conversation, and told police he felt like he was being targeted. When he asked what the specific complaint was, one of the officers informed him that he was talking about killing black people, which was a public safety concern, according to the affidavit.
Richter told police that was probably misinterpreted, and that he didn’t have “intent.” He told the officers that he was from the South, and that he knew he had a different perspective than people in the North. He said he was an American, a patriot and that he loved his country.
Richter then left the interview, saying he had to get back to class. The officer told him she’d contact his lawyer, to which Richter responded that they should only contact his lawyer if he was going to be criminally charged.
A few days later, the officers located Richter to inform him that he was being charged with disorderly conduct.
The case, however, ended up being dismissed after a judge determined there wasn’t sufficient probable cause to charge Richter. Richter’s lawyer also contended that his speech was protected by the First Amendment and could not be criminalized, but the judge declined to make a determination on that point, since he ruled in Richter’s favor on the first point.
“The concerns raised by any threat to commit such an act of violence, especially in a school setting, cannot be overstated,” Judge David Fenster wrote in his decision. “However, the court’s duty is to apply the facts alleged to the law of the State of Vermont.”
After the case was dropped, Richter ended up leaving the university. It could not be determined whether he has since enrolled at another school.