An honors student at a satellite campus of Atlanta's prestigious Emory University was arrested after she posted a social media threat that "I'm shooting up the school," police and university officials said Monday.
Emily Hikari Sakamoto, 21, a sophomore at Emory's campus in Oxford, about 30 miles southeast of Atlanta, was held on $1,500 bond in the Newton County Jail. She could face one to five years in prison if she's convicted of the single count of making terroristic threats, a felony.
In an arrest report, Emory police said Sakamoto acknowledged having used YikYak shortly after midnight Sunday to post the anonymous threat, which read: "I'm shooting up the school. Tomorrow. Stay in your rooms. The ones on quad are who will go first."
Sakamoto was arrested Sunday afternoon at her home, police said.
The post was live for only a few minutes early Sunday, but several Emory students preserved it in screenshots, which they provided to police, according to the arrest report.
Sakamoto was named to the Oxford campus' merit list in March, meaning she maintained a grade-point average of 3.0 or better in the fall 2014 semester. No major was listed for Sakamoto; students at the Oxford campus, which is dedicated to arts and sciences, nursing and business, don't declare majors until their junior years.
Authorities and administrators at U.S. colleges and universities have been on alert since a gunman killed nine people and then himself Oct. 1 at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.
