Twelve male students at Salisbury University in Maryland were arrested on hate crime charges after allegedly targeting a man on a dating app and luring him to an off-campus apartment where they attacked him, Salisbury Police announced . Ryder Baker, 20, Bennan Aird, 18, Riley Brister, 20, Cruz Cespedes, 19, Dylan Earp, 20, Elijah Johnson, 19, and Zachary Leinemann, 19, were the first set of students charged with first-degree assault, false imprisonment and reckless endangerment in the attack of a unnamed victim on Oct. 15, according to the police announcement.
They are also all facing hate crime charges. On Thursday, authorities announced that five more students had been charged with the same misdemeanor crimes, identifying them as Cameron Guy, 18, Jacob Howard, 19, Eric Sinclair, 21, Patrick Gutierrez, 19, and Dylan Pietuszka, 20. All 12 students are members of or “associated with” a fraternity at the university, according to police.
A spokesperson for the university told HuffPost in an email that the fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, has been placed on suspension and the students accused of assault were also placed on interim suspension. According to the school’s website , Sigma Alpha Epsilon welcomed 13 new members into their 43-member organization this year. Police say Leinemann initially contacted the victim on Grindr, a popular dating app used by LGBTQ+ individuals, while posing as a 16-year-old, according to charging documents obtained by CBS affiliate WBOC .
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