Student threatening to ‘shoot up’ kosher dining hall and kill Jewish students arrested
A student at Cornell University is facing federal charges after posting threats to kill Jewish students, rape Jewish women, and ‘shoot up’ a kosher dining hall.
Patrick Dai, a 21-year-old engineering student from Pittsfield, New York, was arrested on Tuesday after a series of disturbing threats were posted to a Cornell student message board over the weekend.
One message simply read ‘gonna shoot up 104 west,’ referring to the building that houses campus’s kosher dining hall.
In another post, Dai allegedly threatened to ‘stab’ or ‘slit the throat’ of any Jewish man he came across on Cornell’s campus. The same post threatened to rape Jewish women and behead any Jewish babies.
Dai also threatened to ‘bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews,’ prosecutors said.
Cornell University officials condemned the disturbing messages, and said they worked with the FBI to quickly identify and arrest the poster.
‘We remain shocked by and condemn these horrific, anti-Semitic threats and believe they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,’ Cornell Vice President Joel Malina said.
Cornell has about 3,000 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students who are Jewish, according to the university’s Hillel organization. Jewish students make up about 22% of the university’s student body.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul visited the campus on Monday, expressing support for the campus’s Jewish community.
‘We will not tolerate threats, or hatred, or anti-Semitism,’ the governor said at a press conference.
‘We want to let people know – if you’re going to engage in these harmful actions, hate crimes, breaking our laws – you will be caught and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.’
Dai is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on Tuesday afternoon. His criminal complaint has not been made available to the public yet.
If found guilty, Dai faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, alongside a fine of up to $250,000.
The arrest was made during a disturbing spike in anti-Semitic incidents since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States have risen about 400% over the last month.
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