Life Sentence for White Man Who Fatally Stabbed Black Student in Maryland
On May 20, 2017, 2nd Lieutenant Richard Collins III, three days away from his graduation from Bowie State University, was stabbed fatally in the chest as he waited for his rideshare after visiting with friends at the University of Maryland.
The assailant, Sean Urbanski, 25, approached the group but targeted Collins, who was Black. He told Collins to step to the left. Collins refused, and Urbanski stabbed him in the chest with a three-inch pocketknife. Urbanski was a University of Maryland student at the time. After the stabbing, he pocketed the knife and sat down on a bench until police arrived.
On January 14, 2021, Urbanski was sentenced to life in prison at the Prince George’s County Circuit Court in Maryland. The judge denied the prosecutor’s request for a sentence without parole. Judge Lawrence Hill Jr. said to Urbanski, “You committed the ultimate offense.” The judge also said he believes race and alcohol were both factors in the killing, and that it was no coincidence that Urbanski stabbed the only Black person at the bus stop.
Urbanski’s lawyer, William Brennan, said his client could be parole-eligible sooner than the allowed 15 years, given time already served, and good behavior.
Prosecutors aimed to make race a key element in their case. During the murder investigation, they discovered that Urbanski had joined a Facebook group called Alt-Reich: Nation, supported violence toward Black people, and downloaded racist memes. Though prosecutors sought a hate crimes charge, the judge refused their request for lack of evidence.
According to prosecutors, alcohol and racist propaganda had emboldened Urbanski to act on his hatred of Black people. Prosecutors declared that the hate that drove Urbanski to murder was the same hate the created the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Aisha Braveboy, prosecutor, said, “It cannot and will not be tolerated. Hate kills and it killed this young man.”
Braveboy also said, “I just wanted to make sure that it is clear that this was a hate crime. The limitations were in how the judge interpreted the hate crime statute, which was written in a way that would allow for the interpretation that he had, which was hate had to be the sole motive.”
Defense attorneys argued that there was no evidence of a racial motive for the murder.
In stories told at the hearing, Collins’ mother related that he was following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather to serve his country. “Not white America. Not Black America. The United States of America,” she added.
After Urbanski’s conviction, the Collins family and Braveboy’s office worked to get the Maryland General Assembly to introduce the 2nd Lieutenant Richard Collins, III’s Law. This law would expand the state’s definition of a hate crime “to include certain actions motivated either in whole or in substantial part by another person’s or group’s race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, disability, or national origin, or because another person or group is homeless.” It became law on October 1, 2020.
At a news conference after the sentencing, Collins’ mother said her son had had a bright future planned. “He had aspired to be the next Gen. Colin Powell,” she said, “and there was nothing going to stop him.”
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said that although Collins’ “life was tragically cut short by a murder, he exhibited character and exemplary conduct of an officer of a higher rank.” Collins was posthumously promoted to 1st lieutenant in May of 2020.
