After a student allegedly posted on the Internet Saturday that he would go on "a shooting rampage" on the campus, University Police suspended the Oakland Hall resident from the university and placed him in psychiatric care, police Chief David Mitchell said.
Alexander Song — a 19-year-old from Fulton, Md. — allegedly posted the following messages on Reddit.com and Omegle.com (a one-on-one anonymous text or video chat site) Saturday: "I will be on a shooting rampage tomorrow on campus," "stay away from the Mall tomorrow at 1:30" and "hopefully I kill enough people to make it to national news," according to police.
An alumnus who worked as a police aide during his time at the university and several others who chatted with Song online alerted police Saturday night to the threats, according to university President Wallace Loh. The police department collaborated with this university's Office of Information Technology and "worked all night" to identify where the threats on the Internet were coming from, Loh said.
University Police found Song at about 10 a.m. yesterday near Cumberland Hall, and he was unarmed, according to University Police spokesman Capt. Marc Limansky.
Song will be placed in psychiatric care, and police have obtained a warrant charging him with disturbing the orderly conduct of this university — a crime punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 or up to six months of imprisonment, Mitchell said. Police said they did not find any weapons when they searched his Oakland Hall dorm room.
Police heard from "a variety of people who read online" that Song was a threat, Mitchell added.
"The dialogue that he put out there caused us to think that time was of the essence," Mitchell said. "We called in every detective. It was a spider web of information that we have to work backwards from."
The department posted a press release about the incident on their website at about 8:55 p.m. yesterday followed by a crime alert to the university community at about 11:30 p.m.
Song's roommate, Brian Barnett, said he did not know about the threatening messages online until he was unexpectedly awoken at about 8:30 a.m. yesterday to police banging on his door.
"They were looking for my roommate; they didn't tell me any information, just asked questions about what I knew, and I didn't know anything," the sophomore biology and psychology major said. "I know he's been stressed recently, but that's all I know. I assumed it was schoolwork."
Loh, who was in Los Angeles at the time of the incident, said although police and university departments quickly mobilized to respond to the threats, he plans to meet with officials across the campus to review the university's safety procedures and see if the guidelines can be improved.
"I think this is an occasion to review what we have done, and they really prevented what could have been a tragedy," Loh said. "Let's have a meeting to see if there are further improvements we can make and to make sure that if this should ever happen again, we have a successful outcome, that is, preventing a tragic situation from happening."
Some Oakland Hall residents said the incident was unnerving.
"When we're having police barge in here, I don't feel safe," said Bobby Lanar, a sophomore classics major. "I spent most of the day trying to figure out who it was and why it happened."
But other students said since police have taken care of the situation, they feel more secure on the campus.
"I'm glad my door locks from the outside," said Jaclyn Weisz, a sophomore biology major. "It's freaky, but it's done now."
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