Racist Threats Against NJ University Tracked Back to Black Protest Leader

A black alumnus of Kean University was charged by police Tuesday for making series of anti-black death threats against the university over Twitter.

In the midst of the November student protests at Missouri University and Yale University, nearly 100 Kean students took part in rallies against racism. But shortly afterwards, a Twitter account called @keanuagainstblk promised violence against black students, making both bombing and shooting threats. “i will kill every black male and female at kean university [sic]” the account promised.

But police tracked the tweets backs to Kayla-Simone McKelvey, a former Kean student and one of the leaders of the protests. According to police, “McKelvey left the [protest], and went to the college library, a few steps away, where she set up a Twitter account under a handle meant to conceal her identity.”

Investigators then claim that McKelvey “returned to the demonstration and made reference to the posts, in an apparent attempt to increase the urgency of her event.” McKelvey also tweeted out a screenshot of the tweets from her own personal account.

THIS IS HAPPENING AT #KeanUniversity pic.twitter.com/qdlA9WZXLT

— IG Ohhshebajan (@ACaribbeanDream) November 18, 2015

McKelvey was also an organizer of a series of protests in March alleging racism on the part of a psychology professor and the student administration, but a campus paper at the time called the allegations “shaky,” saying that “little to no evidence has emerged to support the claims of student demonstrators.”

[Image via screengrab]
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