3 Men Charged With Making Terrorist Threats Against Black Mizzou Students

CorrectionA caption in an earlier version of this article misidentified one of the suspects. The photo shows Hunter M. Park and Connor Stottlemyre.

Prosecutors have charged a third Missouri man with posting online threats to attack a college campus.

Nineteen-year-old Tyler Bradenberg, of St. Louis, was charged Thursday with a felony count of making a terrorist threat. An arrest warrant has been issued for him.

Authorities say Brandenberg posted "I'm gonna shoot up this school" on the anonymous messaging app Yik Yak on Wednesday. It was apparently aimed at the Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, where he studied chemical engineering for a semester last fall.

A Rolla detective says Brandenberg admitted he posted the threat. An S&T spokeswoman says technology was used to try to make it appear the post was made from the Rolla campus, but it wasn't.

Meanwhile, Hunter M. Park, the 19-year-old student accused of making online threats against black students and faculty at the University of Missouri's Columbia campus was denied bond during his first court appearance by closed-circuit television from the Boone County Jail Thursday.

Boone County Associate Judge Kimberly Shaw sided with a prosecutor in declining a request by Park's attorney to set bond at $10,000. Shaw ordered Park to remain jailed, pending a Nov. 18 court appearance.

The sophomore studying computer science at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, was charged Wednesday with making a terrorist threat after his arrest at a residence hall. The school said no weapons were found during the investigation.

The threats were made during a time of racial unrest on campus that resulted in the resignations Monday of the university system president and the Columbia campus chancellor.

One of the threatening posts said, "Some of you are alright. Don't go to campus tomorrow" — a warning campus campus police Officer Dustin Heckmaster said in a probable cause statement that he recognized it as one that appeared ahead of last month's Oregon college shooting involving a gunman who killed nine people and himself.

Heckmaster wrote that Yik Yak willingly gave him the cellphone number that Tuesday's poster had used to create the account from which the threats originated. AT&T later told investigators that the number was Park's and that cellphone towers showed that the postings came from the Rolla area, the officer wrote.

Heckmaster confronted Park early Wednesday in the sophomore computer science major's dorm room.

When questioned specifically what he meant by the phrase, "Some of you are alright. Don't go to campus tomorrow," Park "smiled and stated, 'I was quoting something,'" Heckmaster wrote. When pressed whether it was mimicking the Oregon shooting's posting, Park replied, "Mmhmm."

When asked why, Park said, "I don't know. I just ... deep interest," Heckmaster wrote.

In a separate incident, a 19-year-old Northwest Missouri State University student has been charged with two counts of making a terrorist threat.

Nodaway County Prosecutor Robert Rice on Thursday filed one misdemeanor and one felony count against Connor Stottlemyre, a freshman at the school in Maryville.

Stottlemyre is accused of posting a threat against blacks on Yik Yak that read, "I'm gonna shoot any black people tomorrow, so be ready."

Campus police arrested him Wednesday in his dormitory. Stottlemyre was placed on a 24-hour investigative hold pending a warrant for his arrest, according to the Nodaway County Sheriff's office.

Hornickel said Thursday it wasn't immediately clear whether Stottlemyre would face any school disciplinary action. Authorities hadn't linked the incident to threats at the University of Missouri's Columbia campus, Hornickel added.

The threats follow months of protests culminated in a tumultuous week on the Columbia campus.

Back in September, the student government president reported that people shouted racial slurs at him from a passing pickup truck, galvanizing the protest movement. Last week, a graduate student went on a hunger strike to demand the resignation of university system President Tim Wolfe over his handling of racial complaints.

Then more than 30 members of the Missouri football team refused to practice or play in support of the hunger striker. Those developments came to a head Monday with the resignation of Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, the top administrator of the Columbia campus.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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