Student charged in University of Waterloo stabbings, police believe gender-studies class was targeted | CBC News

A 24-year-old international student has been charged in the stabbings Wednesday in a University of Waterloo, Ont., classroom in what is believed to be a hate-motivated incident targeting a gender-studies class, regional police said Thursday.

Waterloo regional police said they’re still investigating the incident, which sent three people to hospital, inside Hagey Hall. In the meantime, they’ve charged Geovanny Villalba-Aleman, 24.

A police news release says “this was a hate-motivated incident related to gender expression and gender identity.”

The accused has been charged with:

He has been charged with the following offences: 

• Aggravated assault (three counts).
• Assault with a weapon (four counts). 
• Possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose (two counts).
• Mischief under $5,000.

Some 40 students were inside the classroom during the stabbings, which left three people with serious but non-life-threatening injuries: the 38-year-old female professor from Kitchener, and two students: a 20-year-old female and a 19-year-old male, both from Waterloo.

“The accused was located by police within the building and arrested,” who appeared in court for a bail hearing Thursday.

In-house alert system went off after stabbings

News of the charges comes after university officials said the in-house emergency alert system didn’t work as expected after the stabbings.

Rebecca Elming, a university spokesperson, confirmed the WatSAFE app sent an alert to students 90 minutes after the incident.

She said a tweet from earlier in the day about testing the app was deleted to avoid creating confusion between the test and real alerts.

Nick Manning, associate vice-president of communications, said a “second look at our emergency notification systems” is needed.

“But as soon as we had official notification from our partners at the police, we were there notifying our community through other means, and we need to take a look at that that system to understand.”

Supt. Shaena Morris of the Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) said the university’s security response system was adequate when the stabbings happened.

“We were able to work together with the University of Waterloo Special Constable Service to make an immediate arrest on scene,” she said.

She confirmed no security staff were in Hagey Hall at the time of the stabbings.

“As is normal for any day on the university campus, we don’t have a strong and super visible security presence. It wouldn’t be normal for us to have a significant security presence on campus on any normal day — and this was any normal day.”

Manning said it is too soon to speculate if an upgrade to security is needed.

“Of course, … it requires us to go away and think about and examine the way that we go about our daily business, but I think it’s really important for us to think now about the supports for the students in the moment, the employees in the moment and take some time to reflect on what’s happened and make a plan from there.”