Harvard students, affiliates receive bizarre death threats via email
Several hundred Harvard University students and affiliates received a threatening email Friday, followed by apologies on Saturday and Sunday.
In the first email, from a "hotmail.de" address, the writer said that he or she would come to Harvard on Saturday and "shoot all of you." The Harvard Crimson reports that many of the recipients were women of Asian descent, and the author called them "slit-eyes." Some Harvard students received the same message in a second email, this time from a Google Mail address.
On Saturday, another email was sent, from someone apologizing for the previous email and saying it had actually been sent by a younger brother, who did not plan on doing anything. The author of the second email claimed to be 15 years old and living in France, and a similar message was sent to hundreds of Harvard affiliates Sunday morning as well.
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A safety advisory went out over the weekend, and a public event about the experiences of Asian American students at Harvard was postponed. Campus security was increased, with more uniformed and plainclothes officers on duty, and the FBI was notified. Students were asked to report anything suspicious to the authorities.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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