Albany college students who claimed to be the victims of a racist attack while riding the bus have been charged with false reporting, as well as assault on another woman.
"The evidence shows that, contrary to how the defendants originally portrayed things, these three individuals were not the victims of a crime," State University of New York Police Chief Frank Wiley said in a statement,
according to CNN.
"Rather, we allege that they are the perpetrators."
Ariel Agudio and Asha Burwell, both 20, were charged with misdemeanor assault and falsely reporting an incident. Alexis Briggs, also 20, has been charged with misdemeanor assault.
The group claimed that they were called racial slurs by a group of white men and attacked on Jan. 30 during a bus ride as bystanders did nothing.
The allegations caused an outcry from the student body, and university President Robert J. Jones said he was "deeply concerned, saddened, and angry about this incident."
Similarly, Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton tweeted a link to the story, and wrote, "There's no excuse for racism and violence on a college campus."
A three-week investigation by the university police department found that video footage of the incident seemed to show that the group of women were not victims, but rather attacked another woman of roughly the same age.
The Albany Times-Union reported that the woman, 19, is from Congers, Rockland County, and is white.
"No male struck the three women," said a police statement. "The evidence indicates they were actually the aggressors . . . and that they continued to assault the victim despite the efforts of several passengers to stop them."
"What happened on the bus was not a 'hate crime,'" Wiley said. "The only person we heard uttering racial epithets was one of the defendants."
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