Anti-racism group says Windsor police have arrested a suspect over threatening emails
Police would not confirm that an arrest had been made
According to anti-racism group ExposeUWindsor, a person has been arrested for allegedly sending harassing online messages to Black students and professors.
This comes about three months after the group exposed racist and hateful messages allegedly exchanged by members of the Delta Chi fraternity's University of Windsor chapter which led to its closure days later.
Many Black students at the University of Windsor spoke out and expressed how they felt about the incident.
Jordan Afolabi, a first-year law student who's been involved in the investigation process, says there was an online backlash and threats to those who spoke out.
"Many of them were rendered vulnerable to online public attacks from anonymous accounts, and many of them received very disturbing and menacing messages from various accounts," he said.
"So this started happening and it scared the Black student community."
Windsor Police Service (WPS) would not confirn the arrest and told CBC News they "do not confirm nor deny active investigations."
However, CBC News obtained from ExposeUWindsor an email sent to it from a police investigator stating a person has been arrested for the offence of criminal harassment in relation to the case.
Afolabi said the messages had a chilling effect.
"Many of my friends were hesitant to continue posting and continue speaking out about anti-Black racism."
Afolabi describes the messages as racially-charged, especially toward Black people, anti-Semitic and homophobic.
"It's not just Black students that were affected by this. The queer community was affected and the Jewish community was affected,' he said.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
