Calgary police lay charges in one of a series of attacks being investigated for hate motivation

Police in Calgary say they have laid charges in one of a series of alleged hate-motivated attacks in the city in recent weeks.

Investigators say they have heard from several different cultural and racialized communities who are worried about their safety and well-being after the attacks.

"I think last year kind of combined people's awareness to the seriousness of hate crimes, and I think there is much more willingness for people to actually come come forward now to report incidents to the police,"Const. CraigCollins, the Calgary police's hate crime coordinator, told CBC.

"I was speaking to one of the witnesses from the road rage incident,and as they drove by, the witness said to me they felt compelled to stop because they wanted to make sure that this person was OK and they wanted to do something, record the evidence and notify the police rightaway.

"So I thinkpeople are just more willingto come forward and report these matters to us."

Several investigations are underway and police have now laid charges related to a case last weekend where a woman and her son were approached on an LRT platform.

A man allegedly pushed the boy and began following the mother, who believes she was racially targeted, until she was helped by a bystander.

Carter Justin MacDonald, who is 31, has been arrested and charged with two counts of assault, one count of causing a disturbance in public and breach of a probation order.

Separate incidents

Police say they are still looking for suspects in relation to a separate incident in which a woman was hit in the head with a frozen water bottle.

Police believe the bottle was thrown by one of five teenagers riding by the woman on bicycles. The victim told police the incident was unprovoked and was believed to have occurred due to her race.

In addition, police are still trying to identify a man they sayspat on a woman and called her a racial sluroutside a dollar store in the northeast community of Temple.

How this Calgarian felt after being spat on, called racial slur

3 years ago

Duration 5:49

Tianna Hay was about to enter a Dollarama in Temple when she experienced something she will never forget.

Officers are also continuing to investigate a May 26 incident in which a man got out of his pickup truck to confront another driver, who is a Palestinian refugee.

The accused in that incident, who said he was upset about the other driver's slow pace on Bow Trail, was caught on tape banging on the Palestinian man'swindow while calling him a "terrorist" and making references to "Allah and Muhammad" before ripping a windshield wiper off his car.