FBI and police officials in Kentucky are trying to identify and track down a Twitter user who threatened to burn down a high school after Purdue coach Jeff Brohm passed up a chance to return to the University of Louisville, his alma mater.
The ominous tweets by a user with a handle of “Proud Clarion” threatened to burn down Trinity High School in Louisville — which Brohm attended — prompting school officials to cancel classes on Thursday out of an abundance of caution, St. Matthews Police Chief Barry Wilkerson told the Louisville Courier Journal.
“If Jeff Brohm doesn’t come, we burn down Trinity,” one tweet read.
Another tweet referenced the disgruntled fan’s desire to set the school on fire.
“If you see a man running down frankfort with a gas can and wild look in his eye, its me,” the post read.
The user’s Twitter account — which has roughly 1,200 followers — had gone private as of Thursday, less than a day after the tweets were posted Wednesday morning, according to the Courier Journal.
Brohm, 47, announced late Wednesday that he would pass up the chance to return to coach football at Louisville, saying in a statement that the “timing was not ideal.”
Wilkerson, meanwhile, told ESPN that the threat to the all-boys Catholic high school was taken seriously regardless of the author’s intent.
“It doesn’t matter if the nature of it at the moment was satirical,” Wilkerson said. “It caused alarm. It’s a threat. You’re talking about burning down a school building. I don’t think there’s any other way to look at it.”
Police said during a news conference Thursday that felony charges of second-degree terrorist threatening are being considered.
“Even if it’s a hoax, it’s not a good thing to do, it puts a lot of people in a bad situation,” Wilkerson said Wednesday. “So yes, we would probably still prosecute if our commonwealth attorney wishes to do that.”
A spokeswoman for Twitter told The Post that the company does not comment on individual accounts, citing privacy and security concerns.
Source: Read Full Article