MOSCOW, October 4 (RIA Novosti), Ekaterina Blionva - As hundreds of Harvard students were emailed death threats on Friday, the campus police have increased their "uniformed and plainclothes presence" around the Ivy League campus this weekend.
"Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) immediately began investigating [the threat], and also notified other local law enforcement agencies as well as the FBI," the Boston Globe reports, citing an official statement made by the police.
The media source quotes the text of email, which sparked deep security concerns at the university; it read: "I will come tomorrow in Harvard University and shoot all of you each one of you. all Harvard students, I will kill you individually. I'll be back tomorrow at 11 clock in your [expletive] university and will kill you, you sons of [expletive]. Even Mark Zuckerberg of facebook I will kill. I'm going to kill every one of you."
Harvard students who got death threat email: it was poorly written, writer threatened to "shoot all of you." Sent to 400-500, they say #wcvb
— John Atwater (@AtwaterWCVB) October 4, 2014
Police say campus will stay open today despite death threats emailed to hundreds of Harvard addresses. http://t.co/oRFDrVJWFv
— BostInno (@BostInno) October 4, 2014
According to latest advisory, @HarvardU_Police is investigating several leads following emailed death threat. | http://t.co/4tIZDpCMQc
— The Harvard Crimson (@thecrimson) October 4, 2014
It should be noted that the e-mail contained racist language, referring to the recipients as "slit-eyes," and was received predominantly by Asian American females, the university’s newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, points out.
The emails were signed by a person calling herself Stephanie Nguyen, who claimed to be a Boston resident. The threatening message was sent from hotmail.de and Google Mail addresses. The Harvard Crimson notes that the emails identified the senders as Eduardo Nguyen and Huy Dinh.
The media source reports that the students who received the death threat emails were "comforted" by a quick response from the Harvard University Police Department. "I was planning on being in my room during the time that was [outlined] in the email," said Christina H. Gao, as cited by the Harvard Crimson, "Of course it’s scary, but I’m glad HUPD is on it."
It is not the first time Harvard's students and staff have faced a security threat. In December 2013, the elite university was partly evacuated due to a bomb threat. However, the threat turned out to be a hoax, concocted by a student who wanted to avoid taking a final exam. He has since been arrested and charged with "making a hoax bomb threat," Reuters reports.
