Attacker stabs nine people at apartment complex housing refugees in Boise, Idaho
By
Meenakshi Jagadeesan
2 July 2018
Nine people, including six children, were hurt in an attack carried out by a knife-wielding assailant in an apartment complex housing refugee families in Boise, Idaho, on Saturday night. Four of the nine are reported to be battling life-threatening injuries. Within hours, the police arrested Timothy Earl Kinner, a 30-year-old man from Los Angeles, California, for carrying out the attack. Kinner was booked into Ada county jail early Sunday morning on nine counts of aggravated battery and six felony charges of injury to a child.
According to the Boise police department, the number of victims was the most in a single incident in the city’s history. As of now, officials have not released much information about the victims or the motive behind the attack. Police Chief William Bones told reporters that responding officers had found the victims in the parking lot as well as inside the apartment complex. The victims, Bones stated, included “members of the refugee community,” and that their “age range varies dramatically.”
Wylie Street Station Apartments—the scene of the crime—offers low-income family rentals under a US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program that limits rent payments to 30 percent of a renter’s income. It is run by Northwest Real Estate Capital Corp., a Boise nonprofit that specializes in low-income housing. The apartment complex has also housed a large number of refugees.
Based on unofficial statements from family, friends and neighbors in the apartment complex, reports have indicated that the victims include an Iraqi woman and her children, as well as members of a Syrian family. The attack reportedly took…