The University of New South Wales has just issued a safety alert for students and staff on its campus following what looks to be a copycat threat of gun violence posted to 4chan today.
A post on 4chan discovered today shows that an anonymous user has threatened gun violence against those on the campus.
The poster wrote:
“I finally managed to get a handgun. Australians, if you study at UNSW don’t go in tomorrow.”
The university has alerted the NSW Police Force as well as their anti-terror units, and is issuing an alert to students via Facebook:
General security threat – Kensington campus
UNSW has been made aware of a threat to the safety of staff and students on the Kensington campus. We are treating this incident seriously and have been liaising with the NSW Police through the anti-terrorism and security group and Local Area Command.
Police are advising this is a general, not a specific or direct threat.
We will update you when more information comes to hand.
The post comes after a gunman in the US posted a similar message to 4chan threatening violence against students and staff at the Umpqua Community College. The next day he killed nine people.
Comments
25 responses to “UNSW Issue Safety Warning Following 4chan Gun Violence Threat”
What the fuck is wrong with people… seriously hope they find this dickhead.
Aaaand now you’re on a list
Ha! Jokes on you I was already on a list. Doesn’t bother me either, means I don’t have to put up with kids.
You should see the screen shot showing the (then) full thread. Ignoring the clown putting it up there saying the threat is a cry for help (cough cough BULLSH*T! cough cough), the poster making the threat thinks that staying anonymous and then putting a photo of said gun up in poor resolution won’t get him traced.
Christ almighty. I’m sure Adam Lanza was ‘crying out for help’ as he unloaded into the crowd too… if this guy tries, I hope the police ‘cry out for help’ right into his head with a 9mm…
Staff here… sitting very exposed in a reception area. Totally not jumpy at all today…….
“DUCK” “duck? where? I LOVE DUCKS”
99% chance that this is a boy who cried wolf threat , which pisses people off even more because it diverts police and resources for the sake of shits and giggles.
I hope the poster is found and charged with terror related charges
Here here! Like you, I’d be furious if this fake given during my uni and high school years me and my class mates have been on the receiving end of hoaxes.
During high school, one clown got expelled and waited until exam time came to phone in a bomb threat. You can imagine the chaos that turned to anger when that fact came out.
And from memory, a second such scenario happened during my second year at uni. I was on break between exams but when the alert came out so for me it was a minor irritation.
But when it came out it was a hoax, those who had their exams interrupted were literally out for blood.
As someone that was supposed to be in a tutorial on the same floor when that one guy decided to pull a gun out and shoot some people at Monash about a decade ago (I didn’t feel like going and stayed home that day!) I’d rather it be a hoax than the real thing.
It has the hallmarks of someone thinking it would be “funny and cool” to mimic recent events just to entertain themselves. Unfortunately, as you said, it just means that police get diverted away from actual issues.
But it isn’t related to terrorism?
It might be covered under domestic terrorism. That’ll be down to the lawyers, I expect.
Unless you know of political or social objectives that we aren’t yet aware of, it is not terrorism.
Interesting, since I thought it was less about the motive and more about the intent. (The intent being to cause fear of violence/death in a populace, rather than the ‘why’.)
Thanks to every person ever involved with the concept treating it as their own personal political football, it’s a bit more difficult than a wikipedia search to pin down a hard definition with some credibility that hasn’t been officially contradicted.
Not at all. We are discussing police and legal reactions. Terrorism is a specific crime defined and covered by the law.
True enough.
Of course, that said? It could still mean that whether it ‘counts’ as terrorism is still down to the lawyers as to whether they’ll consider it to be covered under domestic terrorism, based on their interpretation of those laws and their interpretation of motive.
If there’s any kind of manifesto sitting on a hard-drive that indicates the motivations could be argued to be attempting to enact some sort of social/political agenda through fear (even if that wording is only about ‘then they’ll learn’), then maybe that could possibly be all they’d need to claim it as terrorism.
I wouldn’t rule it out.
Until any of that evidence is revealed, calling it terrorism is simply a mistake. Which is what I pointed out.
There was one similar to this posted about a possible NZ shooting. Someone is probably trolling the Southern Hemisphere.
All the same…
You take ’em all serious, fake or not. And, ideally, you find the fucker.
That’s why any movies, shows or games where someone calls the police is a total lie when they ask if it’s a prank. They’re obligated to respond as if it is real. Like how people working at Centrelink are completely aware who are gaming the system.
yep its why “swatting became a thing, police have to respond because the moment they dont is when the shit hits the fan
So true. Not dismissing this by any means. Just less of this crap in the world would be nice.
He was probably just trying to dodge an exam!