Student arrested for threatening US university massacre
Emily Sakamoto, student at Emory University in Atlanta, has been arrested after posting threat online
PHOTO: AFP
MIAMI:
Police in the US state of Georgia arrested a female university student who threatened to open fire on classmates, authorities said on Monday, as the country deals with a spate of campus shootings.
Emily Sakamoto, 21, a second-year student at Emory University in Atlanta, was arrested on Sunday after posting the threat online.
She was detained after her classmates notified authorities about the message, which was posted on the Yik Yak mobile app, which allows users to see posts in a radius of up to five miles (eight kilometres).
Sakamoto's arrest came just over a week after a gunman killed nine people at a community college in the state of Oregon. "I'm shooting up the school. Tomorrow. Stay in your rooms," Sakamoto's threat said, according to local broadcaster WXIA-TV.
"The ones on the quad are the ones who will go first," the message said, according to the station. The message was up for just minutes, but several students saw it and one called 911 emergency services, Emory University said in a statement.
"At this time a sophomore student has confessed to sending the message and has been arrested," the university told students in a campus-wide email.
Sakamoto is accused of "making terrorist threats against the university as a result of a social media message that she posted early Sunday morning," the university said in a statement. She was being held in the Newton County jail pending arraignment, the university said.
On Friday, President Barack Obama met in Oregon with relatives of victims of the deadly October 1 rampage there, as shootings on two more school campuses left two people dead and four wounded.
Obama has angrily called on Congress to do more, warning that failure to act on gun control was a "political decision," and vowing to keep pushing for reform.
Police in the US state of Georgia arrested a female university student who threatened to open fire on classmates, authorities said on Monday, as the country deals with a spate of campus shootings.
Emily Sakamoto, 21, a second-year student at Emory University in Atlanta, was arrested on Sunday after posting the threat online.
She was detained after her classmates notified authorities about the message, which was posted on the Yik Yak mobile app, which allows users to see posts in a radius of up to five miles (eight kilometres).
Sakamoto's arrest came just over a week after a gunman killed nine people at a community college in the state of Oregon. "I'm shooting up the school. Tomorrow. Stay in your rooms," Sakamoto's threat said, according to local broadcaster WXIA-TV.
"The ones on the quad are the ones who will go first," the message said, according to the station. The message was up for just minutes, but several students saw it and one called 911 emergency services, Emory University said in a statement.
"At this time a sophomore student has confessed to sending the message and has been arrested," the university told students in a campus-wide email.
Sakamoto is accused of "making terrorist threats against the university as a result of a social media message that she posted early Sunday morning," the university said in a statement. She was being held in the Newton County jail pending arraignment, the university said.
On Friday, President Barack Obama met in Oregon with relatives of victims of the deadly October 1 rampage there, as shootings on two more school campuses left two people dead and four wounded.
Obama has angrily called on Congress to do more, warning that failure to act on gun control was a "political decision," and vowing to keep pushing for reform.