On Sunday, December 6, at around 1:30 a.m., an email was sent to every enrolled student at SUNY Oneonta announcing a potential shooter threat for Monday, December 7, found on the social media app, YikYak.
YikYak allows students to anonymously post messages while in the vicinity of a school. Usually, YikYak’s live newsfeed is full of harmless jokes but allowing students to hide behind their smart phones can lead to negativity or in this case violence and fear.
According to the email, the threat was made at 6:30-7 p.m. but the exact message wasn’t released. A couple of students reported the message but by the time they did, the message was deleted. The email simply stated that the University Police Department (UPD) was working with YikYak, New York State Police, and Hartwick Security (a nearby college), to find out more information about the origin of the message and the person who wrote it. With the lack of information, students were left confused and scared, and of course students’ friends and family as well.
There were several scheduled emails send out by Campus News throughout Sunday in order to keep the students as updated as possible. The second email was similar to the first. The police and YikYak were working together to gather more information but there wasn’t much more to tell. Not until around 7:30 p.m. when the President of SUNY Oneonta, Dr. Nancy Kleniewski proudly announced that the “SUNY Oneonta University Police Department has taken into custody a suspect in connection with yesterday's threatening YikYak message.” The suspect’s name was not included in this email.
At approximately 1 p.m. on Monday, December 7th, Campus News released the name of the suspect, Brandon Matthew Negron, a 20 year old from New Windsor, NY. The email stated, “Negron was charged with making a terroristic threat, a Class D felony, and second-degree aggravated harassment, a Class A misdemeanor.” The email also revealed the threatening YikYak message from Negron, “I’m going to shoot up the school. Be prepared Oneonta.” The message was recovered through UPD’s work with YikYak.
However, it was the few words at the end of that email that sent SUNY Oneonta students back into frenzy. It read, “Negron was arraigned this morning in Oneonta City Court and released on bail. He remains enrolled at SUNY Oneonta while the college follows its student conduct process.” The email didn’t specify if Negron would be sitting in his classes on Monday or not, which again, terrified SUNY Oneonta students.
Many students were outraged but rest assured, another email popped into our inboxes at nearly 5 p.m. The email said, “Brandon Matthew Negron, the suspect arrested yesterday in connection with a threatening message posted to the Yik Yak social media platform, is no longer enrolled at SUNY Oneonta.” It didn’t say if it was the school’s decision or Negron’s but either way SUNY Oneonta’s faculty and students can now walk around campus without fearing Negron.
Finally, after 40 long hours students’ sense of safety could return… or maybe not? Luckily, for SUNY Oneonta this event was handled appropriately but events similar to these have been occurring all over the country. There have been 353 mass shootings just this year and not everyone is as fortunate as those at SUNY Oneonta today. Should we feel safe? Us, college students, live in our college bubble. Here, we usually feel invincible but for two days, we were stripped of that security. Our safety blanket was ripped off of us, leaving us vulnerable.
A couple lessons can be learned from this. First one is think before you post something on the Internet. You would think it’s common knowledge to not joke about a mass shooting but you never know what could motivate a person to do that. This leads me to the second lesson: don’t be afraid to speak up. Those students who reported the message to UPD as soon as they saw it possibly saved people’s lives at SUNY Oneonta. Like I said before, college students feel safe on their college’s campus so please help keep it a safe place.
The world can be a dangerous place but a beautiful one too. Try to keep our world beautiful by spreading love and positivity.
Thank you to UPD, New York State Police, YikYak, those students who reported the message, and other campus authorities for taking the proper precautions and keeping our campus safe.
