Mob attack leaves student with broken jaw
Police, Brock University investigating
Jennifer Snider wants to know who beat her son.
She wants to know who struck him from behind Saturday night at Brock University. She wants to know who kicked him while he lied unconscious on the ground. And above all, she wants to know why.
“His jaw is wired shut. It’s broken in two places. He will have to take nutrition through a straw for the next five to eight weeks,” Snider said about her 18-year-old son and Brock student Connor Snider. “We are still trying to determine who did this.”
Snider has been posting cellphone videos to her Facebook page of the attack on her son by a mob of about a dozen people Saturday evening at Brock. The attack left her son, a sports management student at the university, with a broken jaw and a battered body.
Both Niagara Regional Police and Brock security are investigating the incident.
“The police have been great, and so has Brock security,” said Snider.
Police would not provide any details about the incident when asked by The Standard Wednesday.
“NRP are investigating the
incident. There is no information to release at this time,” said Sgt. Margaret Devine in an email.
Greg Finn, vice-president of academic for Brock, said in a statement the university is aware of the incident “that happened on Saturday night involving our students and a group of non-Brock individuals.”
“Campus security is investigating along with the Niagara Regional Police. Brock does not in any way condone this sort of violence. In addition to the ongoing investigation, we have reached out to the victim and his family and have offered our full
support in his recovery.”
Snider said her son was walking near his campus residence with a friend when two young men that Connor Snider knew from his minor hockey days, approached him.
“They were taunting him, calling him names, asking him if he wants to fight,” she said. “He said no, he didn’t want to fight and then around 15 other people just came out of the darkness.”
She said her son tried to run away, but the mob followed and he was struck on the back of the head.
His mother said he fell face first onto the sidewalk, where he was repeatedly hit and kicked.
“We don’t know for sure if his jaw was broken from the fall or
from being kicked,” said Snider, who added her son is expected to make a full recovery.
Snider said while her son recognized the two people who approached him, he did not know the others. Those two people were not Brock students, she said.
She does not know how the attack ended. She does know a friend threw himself over her son while he lied unconscious on the ground to protect him.
“He doesn’t remember anything except waking up in the ambulance.”
Witnesses have sent her videos of the attack, which she has posted on her Facebook page.
Snider is asking anyone with information about the attack or other videos to contact the NRP, which can be reached at 905-6884111 or by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.