Fake Hate Crime: Wisconsin College Student Put Anti-Muslim Graffiti on Own Door

A student at a Wisconsin college was arrested for defacing his own dorm room door with anti-Muslim graffiti in order to get attention, according to police.

Officials at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, were shocked when a student, 20-year-old Michael Kee, reported that anti-Muslim threats appeared on his door and on a wall outside his dorm room. The student told police he felt he was being threatened over his religion and ethnicity.

Police initially treated the incident as a hate crime, but after an investigation they determined that the student had perpetrated a fraud and painted the graffiti himself,according to WQRF.

Officials now say the student was affected by the outpouring of support a Jewish student recently received when he was a victim of a threatening note pushed under his door. Police said Kee “observed how the Beloit College community had come together after the first reported incident and wanted similar attention.”

The police added that Kee’s fraudulent hate crime would only served to “de-legitimize” victims of real hate crimes.

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