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Student pleads guilty to making online threats toward Mizzou's black community
Published April 19, 2016
Hunter M. Park. (Boone County Sheriff's Department)
A man charged with posting threats online last year that he would shoot black students and faculty at the University of Missouri's Columbia campus has changed his plea to guilty.
Hunter Park, 19, admitted Monday to making a terrorist threat. Authorities say the threats showed up Nov. 10 on the anonymous location-based messaging app Yik Yak.
Brouck Jacobs, an assistant Boone County prosecutor, said there was no plea deal. He said the prosecutor's office has requested a three-year prison sentence.
A university police officer says Park admitted he wrote the postings when confronted in his dorm room at a sister campus in Rolla. The school said no weapons were found.
One post included a threat to "shoot every black person I see," while another threat said: "Some of you are alright. Don't go to campus tomorrow." The message seemed to echo one that appeared on the website 4chan -- a forum where racist and misogynistic comments are common -- ahead of the deadly campus shooting at an Oregon community college in October.
The threats also came amid turmoil and protests at the University of Missouri that activists said were spurred by administrators' indifference to racial issues on campus. Two other people also were charged with school shooting threats during the unrest; one has pleaded guilty and the other is awaiting trial.
Park's attorney, Jeffery Hilbrenner, didn't immediately return phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. Sentencing is set for June 16.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/student-pleads-guilty-to-making-online-threats-toward-mizzous-black-community