Hundreds of Asian students at Harvard get email death threats
Hundreds of Asian students get emails vowing to kill them, which police believe were sent from outside the US and 'may not be credible'
Asian students at Harvard University say they remain shaken after hundreds of them received emailed death threats, even though police said there was probably no danger.
Students and affiliates received the emails on Friday and police at the university in Cambridge, in the US state of Massachusetts, said they were continuing to investigate. The posts probably originated overseas and "the threat may not be credible", police spokesman Steven Catalano said.
The text of the first emails said: "I'm going to kill every one of you, I promise you, slit-eyes." The recipients were mainly women with Asian surnames. Students later received updates from Harvard police, along with offers of mental-health resources from faculty and student groups.
At the weekend, the same students received another email purporting to apologise for the threats.
"I still feel uncomfortable walking around, myself," said Michelle Chan, a fourth-year student who received one of the threatening emails. "I'm not 100 per cent over it. It's still on my mind."
Boston-area residents have been on an elevated state of alert since a pair of homemade bombs were set off at the city's marathon in April 2013, killing three people and injuring 260.
Harvard police would continue to "treat the email very seriously", Catalano said. The department raised its security presence - both uniformed and plain-clothed - on campus, and was working with other law-enforcement agencies on the case, he said.
"It came at such an unfortunate time," said Blessing Jee, a second-year student and member of the Asian American Women's Association. "The entire community was so excited to have this time to come together and talk and have a safe space, and suddenly this safe space is threatened."
Jee, who did not receive one of the emails, learned about them from friends, who said they were afraid to leave their dorm rooms.
While the emails were signed as from someone named Stephanie Nguyen, the name in the sender line was Eduardo Nguyen, students said. Some students said they received a second email hours later with the same text from another sender, identified as Huy Dinh in the return address. Chan said she had been receiving Facebook messages and emails from a person calling himself Huy Dinh since August 2013.
They were "crazy nonsensical emails and I didn't think anything of it at the time", she said.
Other students who received the threat said they had been contacted by Huy Dinh through email, Facebook and LinkedIn.
"It was alarming that almost everyone on the list was an Asian girl," Lee Ann Song, a fourth-year student, said in an email. "I'm glad that the university took it so seriously, so today I feel safe."
In another email sent to the same group of students yesterday, the sender apologised for the threats, saying they were the work of a "little brother" who was using the email address.
"I'm only 15 years old and live in France," said the apology, which contained a few words in German. "There is no running amok in Harvard University I promise you."
Parts of Harvard were evacuated in December, when the university received a bomb threat from a person who turned out to be a student trying to get out of taking a final exam. That student was arrested and faces charges of making a false bomb threat.
The chilling email message sent to Asian students at Harvard
All students at Harvard.
My name is Stephanie Nguyen.
I live in Boston.
I will come tomorrow in Harvard University and shoot all of you each one of you all Harvard students, I will kill you individually.
I'll be back tomorrow at 11 o'clock in your f****** university and will kill you, you sons of bitches.
Even Mark Zuckerberg of facebook I willl kill
I'm going to kill every one of you
I promise you, slit-eyes
