Police at Michigan’s Saginaw Valley State University arrested a student for threatening to shoot up the school and kill all black people on campus.
The twist is, the guy they arrested is black–and, seemingly, was attempting to increase racial tension on campus, after a month of race-related protests at a number of American universities.
Emmanuel D. Bowden, 21, who is black, has been charged with making a false threat of terrorism. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in jail.
Bowden posted this threat on social media site, Yik Yak: “I’m going to shoot every black person I can on campus. Starting tomorrow morning.”
Yik Yak is a geographically-based site that allows users to talk anonymously with people around them. But Bowden didn’t realize that, while other users can’t tell who’s making the threats, police are able to trace all messages back to the sender.
According to police, as the post began to cause a huge uproar on campus, Bowden quickly got cold feet and responded with four follow-up messages: “Its [sic] a joke,” “I’m black,” “I was going to give it an hour to see how you all would react,” and “Right. I could be angry and just expressing myself lol.”
Police and the FBI disagreed. After investigating the post, they arrested Bowden in his dorm on SVSU’s campus.
Bowden is now being held in jail, on a $10,000 bond. He’s also been jailed on a $4,500 bail for an unrelated credit card fraud case.
His first hearing will be December 3.
