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Officials have identified a person of interest in the case of violent, antisemitic threats made toward Jewish students at Cornell University over the weekend, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced Tuesday.
Hochul said the person of interest was in the custody of state police for questioning related to the online threats, which Cornell University’s president previously described as “horrendous, antisemitic messages.” The person has not yet been publicly identified.
New York State Police did not respond to questions from The Washington Post on Tuesday night.
Posted to an online forum on Saturday and Sunday, the messages called Jewish students “rats,” threatened them with death and specifically named a building that houses a Jewish student organization, according to screenshots of the images reposted by New York Attorney General Letitia James and a statement by university President Martha E. Pollack.
The messages also mentioned the Israel-Gaza war. Since the war began in early October, threats to Arab, Jewish and Muslim communities have been rising, according to U.S. officials. On college campuses throughout the country, Jewish students have expressed concerns about antisemitism.
The online incident involving Cornell “highlights the need to combat the forces that are dividing us and driving us toward hate,” Pollack said in her statement Sunday.
“Threats of violence are absolutely intolerable, and we will work to ensure that the person or people who posted them are punished to the full extent of the law,” she said.
On Monday, Hochul visited Cornell’s campus, discussing the recent threats with some of its students.
“No one should be afraid to walk from their dorm or their dining hall to a classroom,” Hochul said during the visit. “That is a basic right that every New Yorker has outside of campus, but particularly on a campus because these are young people who are in an environment that is intended to protect them as well, and their parents need to know this.”
Maham Javaid, Perry Stein and Nick Anderson contributed to this report.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/10/31/person-interest-suspect-cornell-antisemitic-threats/