Last Friday, hundreds of members of the Harvard University community received racially-charged emails -- disproportionately targeting women of Asian descent -- threatening a mass shooting on campus. Authorities say the investigation remains ongoing and haven't offered any further details on the source of the threats. Meanwhile, hundreds of Harvard affiliates received yet another email Monday morning from the same address.
Investigation Unresolved, Yet Another Email Hits Inboxes
The latest email, sent from the same "hotmail.de" address that issued the original threat, seems to offer another apology of sorts for "the insult." The sender self-identifies as a 15-year-old Vietnamese person living in France... who seems to realize that he or she is now likely in a truckload of trouble.
The first threatening email, sent Friday, stated that the author would come to Harvard on Saturday at "11 clock" and "shoot all of you" and "kill you individually." Several students received a second email with the same text. The emails included racist language, referring to their intended recipients as "slit-eyes."
Then, on Saturday afternoon, some Harvard students received another email from the address that had sent the death threat, but this time apologizing for the previous day's message. The author of the email, who claimed to be 15 years old and live in France, wrote that his or her younger brother had sent Friday's threatening message, and asked for "forgiveness."
Monday's email makes even less sense:
The body of the message was not signed, though the sender self-identified as a 15-year-old Vietnamese person living in France and appeared to apologize for the racially charged nature of the original threat, which disproportionately targeted women of Asian descent.
"[I]t is not really meant I apologize for the insult," the sender wrote. The message echoes earlier ones in apparently asking The Crimson to delete its online story on the death threat. In broken English, the message references sending something through Dropbox and "my list as I have the email made."
The "hotmail.de" email account is one of two at the center of the ongoing investigation. A second Google Mail account, which allegedly belongs to a person called Huy Dinh, sent several hundred affiliates an identical threat Friday afternoon.
It's really starting to sound like a prank from some punk kid who's gotten in over his head, and simply doesn't know how to quit. Still, you can't blame the campus community for being high alert. If somebody sends a racist mass email threatening to "shoot all of you," you better damn sure investigate the hell out of that shit and track down the sender, even if it starts to look like it originated from some dumbass French kid's bedroom.