Posted on December 2, 2015

Twitter Threats to Black Kean Students Made by Black Alum, Police Say

Jessica Remo, NJ, December 1, 2015

A recent Kean graduate has been charged with being responsible for a series of tweets threatening black students at the school two weeks ago, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Tuesday.

Kayla-Simone McKelvey, 24, of Union–a black alum who graduated in May–was charged by summons with third-degree creating a false public alarm.

Kayla-Simone McKelvey

Kayla-Simone McKelvey

Park said an investigation by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Unit and Kean University police found that McKelvey, a self-proclaimed activist, participated in a student rally to raise awareness of racism on college campuses on Nov. 17, but left midway through and walked to a computer station in a university library.

Once there, McKelvey allegedly created an anonymous Twitter account–@keanuagainstblk–and began posting threats of violence against black Kean students.

The first message around 10 p.m. said “kean university twitter against blacks is for everyone who hates blacks people” and a tweet about there being a bomb on the campus, and then continued with several other tweets about shooting black students at the university.

After making the posts, McKelvey returned to the rally and spread awareness of the threats, authorities said.

That night on McKelvey’s personal Twitter account, which has since been deleted, she posted photos of the rally and screenshots of the tweets.

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According to McKelvey’s LinkedIn profile, she graduated from Kean this May with a degree in Global Fitness and Wellness and currently works as a personal trainer. She was also the school’s 2014 homecoming queen and president of the Pan African Student Union, according to her profile.

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