The assault of a UW-Platteville student on campus May 3 has been initially classified as a hate crime.

During the incident, homophobic slurs were used against the student, who is gay.

“Any time where we have a situation where it could possibly be a hate crime, we list it as such,” Laurel Skrede, chief of the UW-P campus police department, said. If a case may be a hate crime, it’s easier to classify it as such in the beginning of the investigation rather than after the fact.

According to the police report, at about 1:20 a.m. Saturday morning, the student was walking to Brockert Hall with a friend when they were approached by four men on the North side of Glenview Commons. His friend kept walking to the residence hall.

After a brief exchange, one of the men called him a faggot, and a confrontation developed. One of the men pulled the student to the ground, and the group started kicking him.

“It was probably like a couple of minutes, but it felt long,” the student said. “I finally got up and I just started swinging.”

The men then ran to a nearby vehicle.

“They were still laughing and calling me names,” he said.

After the men drove away, the student walked back to his room.

“I didn’t really know what to do,” the student said. He ended up calling his cousin, who then called the police and the student’s residence director.

The police have no suspects at this time, but have been going to the surrounding residence halls to see if there were any other witnesses.

According to Wisconsin Statute 939.645(1)(a), hate crime charges can be brought when someone intentionally selects a victim based on race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry. This case was also classified as an aggravated assault, and since it is a felony, under (2)(c), a hate crime classification may increase penalties against the perpetrators by not more than $5,000 and five years.

“Without knowing the intent, it’s really hard to classify something as a hate crime,” Skrede said. “I’m just cautious that when something like this is reported that we don’t let it snowball into something that it’s not, which I think is something that is very easy to do.”

If the men were UW-P students, they could also face punishment under Chapter 17 of Wisconsin Administration code, but it’s difficult to determine what that punishment would be because there is not an equivalent case to reference, Dean of Students Richard Egley said. Under the code, punishments can range from a minimal sanction to an expulsion.

A $300 reward is being offered to the first person “to identify and bring to accountability any one or more of the four males involved in this assault,” according to an e-mail sent out by Egley Tuesday.

“I hope people take this seriously and somebody collects the $300,” Carlos Wiley, director of University Diversity Initiatives, said.

Anyone with information about the incident can call the campus police department at 342-1584.