[Imc-newsroom] U of Illinois incident (fwd)

[Regina Day Langhout]

I haven't seen/heard anything about this from any of you there. This came
to me via a student here at Wesleyan. Hope that I'm just out of the loop.
xo
G

---------- Forwarded message ----------

-----Original Message-----

Hi all: hope you're well. A friend of mine has asked that I forward the
below email about a possible hate crime at U of I.  The victim and his
family are seeking help in moving forward with efforts to prosecute the
perpetrators.  The victim's information is at the bottom of the email.
Please pass along to any listservs in the Chicago area as well.

****************************

On Saturday Dec. 8th, approx. 1 AM, outside of a University of Illinois
campus bar, a group of friends made their way back to their respective
homes. Unfortunately as they left, they didn=B4t notice that one of their
friends was being ridiculed by a number of people outside of the bar.  The
hostile group delayed this person until he was alone.  They proceeded to
attack this person, Vishal Desai, until he was unconscious, his nose was
broken, he had two fractures in his face, he had deep cuts all over his
face, his eye was so severely kicked that is was moved out of place which
resulted in blurry double vision. After numerous surgeries and visits to th=
e
doctor, he has still not recovered.  He has permanent damage to his eye and
nightmares about the attackers. Vishal Desai is a Asian American who was
attacked by a group of white fraternity boys.

The University of Illinois as well as the Champaign police department have
not done anything to bring the attackers to justice.  The Police department
as well as the University know exactly what fraternity the assailants belon=
g
to and they know the severity of the crime, yet nothing is being done about
this. Champaign county police as well as the University are trying to keep
this case hush hush because of the bad publicity it may cause. The attack
happened on December 8th and it is now almost March.  The only thing that
has happened is Vishal and a friend have identified possible assailants
through student ID=B4s.  The only reason even this happened was because of
Vishal's diligence.  The University as well as the Champaign police seem
very apathetic about the whole matter.

What we need help with it to pressure the police department to further the
investigation and find the assailants before May when school lets out --
otherwise it will be too late.

Also, we need a lawyer to help us sue either the Bar, the suspected
Fraternity, or the University.  The bar that the incident happened outside
of is responsible for providing alcohol to the underage assailants, as well
as having a bartender who is covering up information, and a bouncer who saw
it all happen outside of the bar and did nothing.  The suspected fraternity
is responsible for not assisting the police with the investigation as well
is giving false information.  They failed to provide a composite picture of
the members of the fraternity, making it harder for Vishal to identify them=
=2E
And according to the Detective on the case, the University is making it har=
d
for him to proceed with the case.

If you can help out in any way, please contact us. Thank you.

Sharmili Desai (sharmilidesai at yahoo.com) (victim's sister)

Vishal Desai
vkdesai at students.uiuc.edu
308 E. Armory Apt #208
Champaign IL 61820
(217) 367-1252