Girl, 3, stabbed at own birthday party dies
BOISE, Idaho — A 3-yearold Idaho girl who was stabbed at her own birthday party died Monday, two days after a man invaded the celebration and attacked nine people with a knife, authorities said.
The police did not release her name, but the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian organization that works with refugees, identified her as Ruya Kadir, an Ethiopian refugee who was brought to the United States by her mother in 2015. The girl’s father lives in Turkey.
“Ruya’s parents are enduring every parent’s worst nightmare, which is made doubly cruel by the fact that they fled to America to escape conflict in Ethiopia,” David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, said in a statement.
One other child has been treated and released from a local hospital, while the seven remaining victims are still in the hospital. Many of those still in the hospital have serious or critical injuries.
Timmy Kinner is accused of stabbing a group of children and the adults who tried to protect them at the party at an apartment complex that is home to many refugee families.
Word of the child’s death came at Kinner’s first court appearance, where Ada County Magistrate Judge Russell Comstock told him that he was charged with first-degree murder and other felonies in the Saturday night attack.
A deputy prosecutor at the court hearing said Kinner has exhibited aggressive behavior while in jail. Comstock told Kinner he was “an extreme danger to the community” and ordered him held without bail.
Kinner is American, and the victims are members of refugee families from Syria, Iraq and Ethiopia. Boise Police Chief William Bones said the evidence does not suggest the attack was a hate crime.
The suspect had recently stayed at the apartment complex but was asked to leave Friday over bad behavior, Bones said.
An Ada County deputy prosecutor at the court hearing said Kinner was homeless with no real ties to Boise. Kinner was in Utah in April and Southern California in March.
He also has an extensive criminal record in Tennessee, according to court records.
The 30-year-old appeared in court through closed-circuit video. Wearing a tattered offwhite sweatshirt with his arms shackled to his waist, Kinner told the judge he didn’t understand the charges or proceedings.
Kinner also said he wanted to represent himself. The judge ordered that he be appointed a public defender anyway.
If convicted, Kinner could be eligible for execution under Idaho law.
Monday evening roughly 1,500 people turned out at a vigil honoring members of refugee families targeted in the stabbing.