A University of Waterloo professor and two students who were attacked in a gender-studies class last year said Monday they live in perpetual vigilance as they grapple with the lingering fear of more violence.
The professor, whose wounds required reconstructive surgery, told a a Kitchener, Ont. courtroom that while the physical pain has faded, emotional scars remain.
She described feeling particularly anxious while teaching, operating with a "persistent mode of surveillance," monitoring the doors and viewing any unknown students who enter with suspicion.
"I carry a metal water bottle that can be used as a projectile. I think about how I might grab my computer or some other device on the lectern to weaponize if needed," she said.
A student who was repeatedly stabbed in the back as she tried to flee said she relives the trauma each night in "endless nightmares."
"I find it difficult to even set foot in school," she wrote in a statement read in court by the prosecution. "The crowds make me feel suffocated, and sitting in classrooms makes me fearful of whether or not someone will burst in."
The professor and students laid out the emotional, physical and professional impact of the June 2023 attack on Monday as part of a sentencing hearing for Geovanny Villalba-Aleman.
Villalba-Aleman, a former University of Waterloo student, pleaded guilty in June to two counts of aggravated assault, one count of assault with a weapon and one count of assault causing bodily harm.
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada has argued those offences constitute terrorist activity in his case.
Court has heard Villalba-Aleman went into a classroom and, after hearing it was a gender-studies course, pulled out two eight-inch kitchen knives. He chased and stabbed the professor in the nose and arm, according to an agreed statement of facts previously read in court.
Panicked, many students tried to run away, while others threw objects at him, the statement said. Two students were stabbed, and another student Villalba-Aleman tried to stab managed to escape without injury, it said.
A student who was slashed in the arm and hand said he lives his life "forever anxious of the possibility that something similar could happen again."
"Every time I go outside, I fear that someone may attack me, or someone close to me, and I would have to take action to defend myself," he wrote in a statement read by the Crown.
Part of a video of Villalba-Aleman's interview with police, in which he explains his motivations for the attack, was played in court Monday.
In it, Villalba-Aleman said he went into the gender studies class because of the subject matter that was being taught, but that he didn't know the professor or students.
"What I did was nothing personal," but rather due to his concern about the indoctrination of young people, he said in the video.
The statement of facts said Villalba-Aleman told police he carried out the attack because he believed post-secondary institutions were "forcing ideology" on people.
Villalba-Aleman, who was 24 at the time of the attack, initially faced 11 charges.
In her victim impact statement, the professor said the attack stirred fears not just for her own safety and that of her students, but for the broader community as well.
"His attack normalizes anti-queer and anti-trans violence and legitimizes violence within the university," she told the court.
"I fear that others may feel emboldened to commit similar acts of violence."
The sentencing hearing is set to continue Tuesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
