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Slain Bowie State University student who was supposed to graduate was instead honored by his fellow students on Tuesday.

According to Time, the gown of Richard Collins III was draped over a chair in the front row and his family accepted his business administration degree. The Maryland HBCU’s commencement was held near the College Park campus of the University of Maryland, where Collins was killed early Saturday.

Collins was tragically killed three days before he was set to receive his diploma.

During the ceremony, Bowie State President Mickey Burnim asked graduates to remember the star student and ROTC member.

“Let us pause now in a moment of silence and contemplation of what each of us might do to promote greater peace, harmony and love that seems to be so lacking in our country and our world today,” he said.

As we previously reported, the University of Maryland announced Sunday that the FBI is helping the campus police determine whether the fatal stabbing of a Collins by a White student was a hate crime. It’s reported that 22-year-old Sean Christopher Urbanski, a University of Maryland student and believed white supremacist, stabbed and killed Collins.

The FBI and local authorities are looking is to social media to determine whether Urbanski committed the crime in the name of hate, Wired reported.

“Suffice to say that it’s despicable,” UMD police chief David Mitchell said, at a press conference, of the now deleted Alt-Reich: Nation group. “It shows extreme bias against women, Latinos, members of the Jewish faith, and especially African Americans.”

Collins father, Richard Collins Jr., said his son was the type of person who “would go out of his way, sometimes to my chagrin, to go and help others — but you want to try to encourage that in your children.”

Yet, “the parent’s worst nightmare has just reached my doorstep,” he said.

SOURCE: Time; Wired

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Slain Maryland Student Honored During Graduation Ceremony  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com