College rampage threat 5 days after the Colorado shooting leads to arrest
A sophomore at Ohio鈥檚 Kent State University pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he threatened the school鈥檚 president, allegedly saying in a posting to the microblog service Twitter that 鈥淚鈥檓 shooting up your school ASAP.鈥�
William Koberna鈥檚 alleged threat on July 25 came just days after a graduate student methodically shot and killed a dozen people at a Colorado movie theater, stunning the nation and rekindling the fiery debate over gun control in the US.
It was unclear what sparked Mr. Koberna's threat but it highlighted the complexities related to the First Amendment and its expression through in聽the exploding social media universe of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other sites.
Police arrested Koberna, 19, at his parents鈥� suburban Cleveland home on Sunday after university contacted police about his profanity-laced Twitter postings directed at university President Lester Lefton and the phrase 鈥淚鈥檓 shooting up your school ASAP.鈥澛�
At his arraignment Monday in Portage County Municipal Court in Ravenna, Ohio, Koberna, a computer science major, pleaded not guilty to聽inducing panic, which is a felony, and aggravated menacing, which is a misdemeanor, according to聽. During the hearing, he told Judge Mark Frankhauser he has 鈥渘o prior criminal record 鈥� not even a speeding ticket.鈥� 聽
No weapons were found at his parents鈥� house.聽Bail was set at $50,000 and he was ordered to stay off campus and have no contact with Mr. Lefton.
The university says he also faces hearings that could results in a suspension or dismissal.
The incident again highlights the power and pitfalls of social media where users can be quick to post a comment or blast out an email that can ricochet around the Internet in seconds. When it comes to rules determining unprotected speech, social media is no different than any other technology 鈥� from a newspaper article to a postal letter, says Chris Hansen, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City.
鈥淔irst Amendment rules don鈥檛 change depending on the medium,鈥� Mr. Hansen says. 鈥淭he question is 鈥榳hat is the speech鈥�, not 鈥榳hat is the medium for which the speech is conveyed.鈥欌��
For prosecutors to show that Koberna鈥檚 Twitter post was not protected by the First Amendment, they need to prove that the threat met the decades-old "clear and imminent" threshold 鈥� that it was credible and not hyperbole, and also that the university perceived the campus was in danger.
The burden of proof on both ends of the threat is intended to not just to prevent a potential violent act from happening, but also to stop fear from spreading, says Michael Dorf, a law professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. That鈥檚 even if the Twitter post was intended as a joke or was simply impassioned rhetoric gone awry.
鈥淭he law has long said that context matters,鈥� Mr. Dorf says. Because social media makes even the most innocuous comment public, colorful language that otherwise might not be taken seriously can be elevated to the status of a threat.
The 鈥渦nsettled question鈥� regarding how to legislate First Amendment rights and social media is in the generational divide among its users.聽 Younger users, for example, tend to be less guarded about what they post online because they consider it 鈥渏ust an extension of the physical world,鈥� Dorf says. Older users tend to be more aware of the implications of their online behavior and therefore are less prone to post comments that may be perceived as a threat.
Incidents like the one at Kent State typically result in attempts to clamp down on technology due to protect unwarranted threats, Hansen says. 鈥淲henever there is a new medium of communication, there are people who push to change the rules,鈥� he says.
What is more likely to weigh into Koberna鈥檚 fate is the July 20 mass killing in Aurora, Colo. that is raising awareness about violence prevention and at-risk youth. The rampage killed 12 people and wounded 58 others.
鈥淛udges live in the same society as the rest of us, so when there is a mass killing perpetrated by a relatively young person, that brings home to judges that these things need to be taken very seriously,鈥� Dorf says. 鈥淔or every mass killing, you鈥檒l find dozens of incidents of kids being suspended or expelled from school for comments or behavior that were probably fairly innocuous.鈥�
