A 17-year-old boy was arrested Friday in Charlottesville, Va., on allegations that he was behind racially charged threats resulting in the shutdown of a school.
Charlottesville High School was forced to close Thursday and Friday by the local public school district after authorities were alerted of “ethnic cleansing” threats on the popular online social platform 4chan. The post came just a week after the alleged shooter who killed 50 people at two New Zealand mosques posted a white supremacist manifesto and plans to murder Muslims on social media prior to the massacre.
The social media posts spurred a rapid investigation by local law enforcement officials, which culminated in the arrest of the teenager in connection to the threats. The Charlottesville Police Department confirmed the arrest Friday, saying that the teenager was charged with harassment and threats to commit bodily harm on school premises.
The police department said that the teenager in custody identifies as Portuguese, according to the Associated Press.
Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall M. Brackney said in a Friday press conference that the teenager in custody is not a student at the high school but is a resident of the area.
“We want the community and the world to know that hate is not welcomed in Charlottesville, violence is not welcomed in Charlottesville, intolerance is not welcomed in Charlottesville,” Brackney said on Friday.
“And in Charlottesville and around the globe, we stand firmly in stating: There are not ‘very fine people’ on both sides of this issue,” she added.
The comment by the chief is in reference to President Trump’s response to the Unite the Right rally in 2017, a white supremacist gathering hailing white nationalist symbols, including references to the Klu Klux Klan, where counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed when a man ran a car into a crowd. The rally put a national spotlight on the Virginia town.
Trump acknowledged there were “some very bad people” attending the rally but was lukewarm in his initial condemnation of the event. “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” he said. Trump issued an emphatic rebuke of the rally after pressure mounted on the White House in the following days.
