US federal prosecutors charge Cornell University student over alleged online threats against Jewish students – JURIST

The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York announced on Tuesday that it charged and arrested Patrick Dai, a Cornell University student, for posting threats online against Jewish students.

The announcement stated that Dai posted threats to kill or injure other students at Cornell. The posts that led to the arrest state, “[J]ewish people need to be killed” and the “rats need to be eliminated from [C]ornell.” According to the release, Dai faces a maximum term of five years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and a term of supervised release of up to three years.

After the arrest US Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke at the United Against Hate Virtual Forum and stated:

As I see in my daily threat briefings, there has been a significant increase in the volume and frequency of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities across our country. Yesterday we arrested and charged a person with posting threats to kill or injure Jews at Cornell University. As this arrest shows, we are focusing our efforts on confronting and disrupting illegal threats wherever they arise. The Justice Department has no tolerance for violence or unlawful threats of violence fueled by antisemitism or Islamophobia. I recognize the fear, frustration, and isolation that many of you have felt over the past few weeks, and that you continue to feel as you join us here today. I want to reiterate a core principle of this Justice Department: no person and no community in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fueled violence.

Additionally, in response to the rise of Jewish hate crimes in response to the ongoing Israel-Hams war in Gaza, New York Governor Kathy Hochul deployed several state resources to protect at-risk communities. Some of these include $50 million in grants available for local law enforcement agencies to prevent and solve hate crimes and expanding the New York State Police’s Social Media Analysis Unit to monitor threats in schools and on college campuses. In response to these deployments, Hochul stated:

My top priority is to protect the safety and well-being of all New Yorkers. Let me be clear: we cannot allow hate and intimidation to become normalized. As Governor, I reaffirm that there is zero tolerance in New York for antisemitism, Islamophobia, or hate of any kind, and it’s critical we deploy every possible state resource to keep New Yorkers safe.

The arrest also comes after a Tuesday hearing by the US Senate Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs directed at addressing the rise in Jewish hate crimes. In his opening statement to the committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated:

Here in the United States, our most immediate concern is that violent extremists—individuals or small groups—will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives. That includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities.