A female student at Oxford College of Emory University in Atlanta was arrested in connection with making terroristic threats in vowing to commit a mass shooting, via a social media app. “Tomorrow. Stay in your rooms”, Sakamoto’s threat said, according local broadcaster WXIA-TV. “The ones on the quad are the ones who will go first”.
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Documents from the school show the arrest followed a message posted on the social media site Yik Yak.
The university released a statement and police report saying 21-year-old Emily Sakamoto was arrested Sunday by campus police.
Sakamoto was taken into custody for “indiscriminate acts of violence”, Oxford College Dean Stephen Bowen told the student body in an email on Wednesday.
The post was immediately deleted, but other students screen-grabbed the message and called police. Often, users post jokes, notes about all-nighters or simply messages about the weather.
The student was being held in the Newton County jail pending the filing of charges, the university said.
Sakamoto, who attended a private school, Sewickley Academy in Sewickley, Penn.as Class of 2013, was on the Oxford College Merit List for having a GPA of 3.0 or higher for the Fall 2014 semester. Additional officers were sent to the Oxford campus and work began to identify the person sending the message.
It’s easy to see why college campuses are on edge after the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.
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At Mary Washington University in Virginia, a group of feminists said they were threatened on Yik Yak for their activisim; Yik Yak activity on that campus was probed after a member of a feminist group was slain there earlier this year.
