It Takes Very Little Effort To Shut Down a College Campus These Days
Today, classes were cancelled and the campus closed at the University of Chicago after an online threat was made against the school’s white students. That threat, it was later revealed, was written in the comments section of the pulpy rap culture website Worldstarhiphop.com.
The threat, which was buried in the comments about a clip of the 1995 movie Panthers, was highly specific, even by Worldstar’s standards. Via the Chicago Tribune:
“This is my only warning. At 10AM Monday morning, I’m going to the campus quad of the University of Chicago. I will be armed with an M-4 carbine and two desert eagles, all fully loaded. I will execute approximately 16 white male students and or staff, which is the same number of time McDonald was killed,” wrote the commenter, who posted with the initials “JRD” and a Chicago Bulls logo, according to the police report. “I will then die killing any number of white policeman in the process. This is not a joke. I am to do my part and rid the world of white devils. I expect you do the same.”
That said, police say the threat—which was brought to the attention of the FBI by a New York resident—“did not appear to be credible.” It instead seems like the doing of a kid who was screwing around. Today, cops arrested a 21-year-old student named Jabari Dean, who prosecutors say lacked the means to carry out the threat.
Mostly this incident drives one point home: Basically anyone willing to risk potential prosecution can grind an entire college campus to a halt with just one click (or tap, if you’re using Yik Yak.)
And to think, it’s not even finals week.
[image of cops on the campus of the University of Chicago via Getty]
