A number of Harvard University students received emails that threaten their lives on Friday afternoon. The news was revealed on a community advisory that was posted on the university's website.
According to the advisory, the students and affiliates at Harvard received an emailed death threat at around 4:45 on Friday afternoon. The email sender had further threatened to come to the campus the next day and go on a 'shooting spree' wherein the targets are the recipients of the email. Immediately, the Harvard University Police Department began investigating on the incident. The FBI and other local law enforcement agencies were also notified.
Some Harvard students received a second email at 4:50pm that contained the same message. This time, it appeared like the email came from a different Google Mail address as opposed to the first one identified as "hotmail.de."
Both emails addressed the message to "All students at Harvard." Both also contained threatening messages in a language that appeared to be racist in nature. The senders of the email referred to their recipients as "slit-eyes." Moreover, several of the intended recipients seemed to bear Asian surnames.
One thing that makes the death threat emails unique is the fact that they were not sent by an anonymous sender. There were at least three people who have either self-identified themselves or have been identified by the address that was indicated on the mail. These were Stephanie Nguyen, Eduardo Nguyen and Huy Dinh.
Jeremy Warnick, spokesperson of Cambridge Police Department said that the CPD joins HUPD in the investigation. Steven G. Catalano, spokesperson of Harvard University Police Department adds that the FBI had joined in their pursuit.
"At this time the campus remains open and operations have not been curtailed," wrote Catalano in the advisory message that was posted at 11pm. He had already advised Harvard affiliates that they need to take all the necessary precautions. They can get a lot of information on how to do so by familiarizing themselves with the active shooter safety guidelines from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
As a result of the massive email threatening incident, the Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association planned to host an event that will highlight the Asian American experience at Harvard on Saturday afternoon. They will be joined by several other Asian cultural groups. However, the organizers decided to postpone the discussion until next Saturday after having a talk with the police on late Friday evening. The event, dubbed as "Perspectives: Being Asian American at Harvard," has been rescheduled for the safety of the event's attendees.
The organizers apologized for the event's postponement and added that "no one should have to open their inbox and see such a threatening and racially charged message." Instead, there will be an informal get-together on Saturday at 2pm where the HUPD officers would also be present.
