Photo: Broome County Jail
A Cornell University student was arrested for making online death threats targeting Jewish students.
Patrick Dai, 21, faces a charge of "posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications," according to a United States Attorney's Office Northern District of New York press release shared on Tuesday (October 31). Dai shared several posts on an online discussion board, which included threatening to "shoot up" a campus building, as well as claiming he would "stab" or "slit the throat" of Jewish men and "rape" Jewish women before throwing them "off a cliff."
The 21-year-old also threatening to "behead" Jewish babies "in front of your parents" and "bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you" Jewish students, prosecutors stated. Dai is scheduled to appear in a Syracuse federal court on Wednesday (November 1) in relation to the charge and could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Dai reportedly admitted to making the threats while speaking to FBI officials earlier in the day, according to the federal complaint filed against him.
"Dai admitted, after receiving Miranda warnings, that he was the person who used the internet to post the threatening messages described above," the complaint states.
The incident comes amid a reported increase in Jewish hate crimes at "historic levels," according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
“The Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum,” Wray said, acknowledging that the statistics included homegrown violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations, and domestic violent extremists, via CNN.
“In fact, our statistics would indicate that for a group that represents only about 2.4% of the American public, they account for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes,” Wray added.
The incidents come amid conflict between Israel and Palestine in the Gaza. At least 1,400 people, including at least 33 American citizens, were killed and more than 3,400 were injured in the initial terror attacks on Israel by Hamas on October 7, MSNBC reports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, "we are in a war," in a video shared on social media after the attacks, which included land, air and sea as Hamas fighters infiltrated Israel's southern border and fired rockets from the Gaza Strip. More than 6,500 people are reported to have died in retaliation attacks on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry said via NBC News, though U.S. President Joe Biden said he had "no confidence" in the information provided by the group.