Ex-Indiana U. student gets probation for Muslim woman attack

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – A former Indiana University student who tried to remove a Muslim woman’s headscarf has been sentenced to one year of probation after pleading guilty to battery.

Twenty-year-old Triceten (Triss-TON’) Bickford of Fort Wayne entered the plea Monday in Monroe Circuit Court.

Authorities say Bickford shouted anti-black racial slurs and tried to remove the woman’s headscarf as she sat with her 9-year-old daughter outside a Turkish cafe in Bloomington.

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI determined the Oct. 16, 2015, attack did not constitute a hate crime.

The (Bloomington) Herald-Times reports (http://bit.ly/2j6oxRF ) Bickford testified he was sorry and attributed the attack to an afternoon of heavy drinking at an IU football tailgate party combined with his prescribed antidepressant.

Bickford was later expelled from the university.

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This story has been corrected to show that the first name of the man sentenced is Triceten, not Triceton.

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Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com