Campus Safety head Fountain Walker confirmed that Thursday morning’s shooting threat was a “swatting” and confirmed by law enforcement as a noncredible in a universitywide email this evening.
Walker said that the email, which included threats to open fire specifically at Black students and faculty members, was sent by a person not currently in the United States based on evaluations by the FBI and New York City Police Department. He added that other universities in the nation have also been “plagued by swatting episodes in recent weeks.”
“It is a distressing development, one that campus safety agencies are concerned could lead to a senseless accident,” Walker said. “This incident deserves forceful condemnation for its vile racist language and aiming its threats of violence at the Black members of our community.”
Walker also linked NYU’s Wellness Exchange and Employee Assistance program.
This morning at around 10:43 a.m., NYU administrators received an email titled “NYU will pay for Iryna with blood” from the user “Bumpy McGraw.” Attached was a six-page manifesto with racist language, referencing the recent death of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska and expressing goals to “go for a better score then Dylann Roof,” a white supremacist who killed nine people at a South Carolina Black church in 2015.
More than a dozen universities, such as Texas Tech University and Iowa State University, have received similar hoax threats, channeling law enforcement resources to false shooting threats since the end of August. Law enforcement describe that swatters would often utilize artificial intelligence to sensationalize their messages about mass shootings.
“Even when unfounded, threats such as these can still be disturbing, especially when it targets specific communities, as it did in this case,” Walker said.
Contact Amanda Chen and Dharma Niles at [email protected].
