A mass shooting threat targeted the San Jose State main campus Friday night through a hacked student Discord account.
The hacker threatened to imperil the university on Wednesday in the student’s profile description, according to a Discord profile screenshot.
“I AM GOING TO SHOOT UP San José State University ON DECEMBER 1ST, 2021. MARRY CHRISTMAS FUCKERS,” the online biography stated.
The account was used to post slurs and other offensive language in various university-associated Discord servers, said Daniel Slade, software engineering junior and SJSU Discord moderator.
Slade, who’s connected with other SJSU moderators, said the hacked account message on multiple university servers.
“As far as I know, there were messages in the physics server, Patra’s CS47 server, the class of 2025 server and some student wellness server,” Slade said in a Discord message.
A campuswide email alert regarding the threat was sent to all SJSU community members Saturday afternoon.
The UPD worked with other law enforcement agencies to investigate the post and stated the threat is “not deemed credible at this time,” according to the SJSU alert.
UPD Capt. Frank Belcastro said the department’s investigation found no reason to deem the account owner as suspicious and the message hasn’t been proven to be a valid threat.
“We’ve already done a full threat assessment on the person whose account was hacked. We don’t believe that she has anything to do with [the threat] at all,” Belcastro said in a phone call. “We work with San Jose [Police Department], we work with the sheriff, we work with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center.”
The Northern California Regional Intelligence Center supplies regional, analytical and investigative assistance to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies regarding terrorism, cybersecurity, risk management and infrastructure protection, according to its website.
Communications junior Bella Ruzsa, owner of the hacked account, said she noticed troubling messages from friends regarding comments coming from her account as she was getting off work Friday evening.
“I was panicking. I was trying to rush home to get to my computer to see how it got hacked,” Ruzsa said. “I wanted to cry because I’ve never said anything like that in my life. I was in such shock. I didn’t know what to do.”
The hacker changed Ruzsa’s profile photo, posted slurs and pornographic photos in addition to the campus threat, she said.
Ruzsa contacted UPD Saturday morning and cooperated with the investigation, she said.
“They asked me questions and I gave them all the information I had and they were really helpful in the end,” Ruzsa said. “I hope it doesn't happen to anyone else. [Hacking] has been really common and I just wanted to make sure my name was clear and that they knew I wasn’t involved in that.”
She said she plans to establish dual authentication on every account she owns to prevent similar incidents in the future.
UPD Chief Ric Abeyta confirmed the lack of credibility to the threat in a Monday campus-wide email and said various law enforcement agencies are continuing to investigate the post.
On Sunday, official SJSU Twitter and Instagram accounts posted teasers for an announcement planned for Wednesday, sparking panic in many students.
The SJSU posts included the caption: “12.1.21 … stay tuned, Spartans!”
The university’s instagram account made an additional comment on the post, telling followers “no need to worry” because “it would be fun to build anticipation.”
Computer science junior Khush Naidu said the university’s social media posts incited more paranoia regarding the threat.
“I think I laughed when I saw the post,” Naidu said in an Instagram message. “The post had the same date on the caption as the one on the threat so it was a case of bad timing and probably a lack of awareness on part of the social media admin.”
The pre-planned announcement may have caused confusion and were subsequently taken down, Abeyta stated in the Monday email.
Environmental studies sophomore Kaylan Wells said she first encountered the threat on the SJSU Class of ’25 Discord server and took screenshots to warn other students on the SAMMY app.
“I decided to take a picture of it and spread the word to people I knew, hoping that it would gain awareness,” Wells said in an Instagram message. “We’re very thankful that the UPD took it as seriously as we did, and managed to inform every student via email on the situation.”
Although law enforcement declared the threat to not be credible, Wells said she still feels nervous coming to campus Wednesday.
“I would absolutely not feel comfortable going to class . . . unfortunately, with it being the last few weeks of the semester some of us students will feel like we have to go to these classes,” Wells said. “I fortunately do not have classes that day, but my friends do, and I'm really scared for them."
