Penn State roommates threatened mass violence to disrupt final exam, police say
.JPG "Two Penn State students were charged after police said they conspired to disrupt a final exam by threatening mass violence through several social media posts.")
Two Penn State students were charged last week after police said they conspired to disrupt a final exam by threatening mass violence through several social media posts.
Madeline C. Steczkowski, 19, of Connecticut, is accused of using the location-based social media app Yik Yak to claim in mid-December that she would “bomb” and “shoot up” the Forum Building.
She admitted to making three posts after her roommate — Carolyn E. Kahn, 19, of South Carolina — complained about an exam she had scheduled there and offered her $10, a Penn State police detective wrote in an affidavit of probable cause.
Emails sent Wednesday to both women were not immediately returned. Neither had a defense lawyer listed as of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The detective said Steczkowski threatened mass violence Dec. 16, three days after a shooter killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others. The threat at University Park drew a response from Penn State, State College and Ferguson Township police as well as the FBI.
No suspicious items were located in the building, but police said they identified Steczkowski as the user who made the posts and located her on campus.
The detective said Steczkowski was “emotional and apologetic” during an interview with investigators. She said she didn’t think the posts would be taken seriously or traced back to her, police wrote.
Kahn said she told her roommate that the posts were a “bad idea and that someone would take it seriously,” according to the affidavit. Neither woman owns firearms or researched bomb-making, police wrote.
Yik Yak provides a feed of anonymized comments from people physically around them and is widely adopted on campuses, but students aren’t as anonymous as they may believe. The service can disclose to police each user’s Internet Protocol address and GPS coordinates, as well as details about the device, date and time of each message. Users must also provide a phone number to sign up.
Each were charged Friday by summons with four misdemeanor counts of terroristic threats. Steczkowski was also charged with three misdemeanor counts of false bomb threats.
Each has a preliminary hearing scheduled for Feb. 18.