Los Angeles:
A major US university moved its classes online on Tuesday after a former philosophy teacher posted a video that apparently threatened a mass shooting on campus.
UCLA in Los Angeles told its 44,500-strong student body that distance learning would be conducted after Matthew Harris posted an 800-page screed and video to the Internet.
Harris was arrested in Boulder, Colorado, Police Chief Maris Herold told reporters.
“When going through parts of the manifesto, we identified thousands of references to violence, which included things like murder, death, murder, shootings, bombs, schoolyard massacre in Boulder,” she said.
“The level of violence that we saw in the manifesto was clearly so alarming. We haven’t established any connections between states yet, so we have federal partners looking at this as well. But I can tell you it’s very violent, very disturbing.” .”
According to the Daily Bruin, a newspaper published by UCLA students, college police began investigating Harris after he sent messages to several individuals in the philosophy department.
These include a link to a video titled “Philosophy UCLA (Mass Shooting),” as well as an 800-page rant of threats.
Harris was placed on administrative leave last year after he was accused of sending a video of pornographic content to a student, the Daily Bruin reported.
Mass shootings, particularly at schools, shopping malls and places of worship, are a recurring problem in the United States that successive governments have been unable to curb.
Despite a majority of the American public in favor of stricter gun control rules, attempts to restrict access to firearms are regularly thwarted by a powerful gun lobby, which invokes a constitutional right to bear arms.
Gun violence claimed more than 44,000 lives, including suicides, in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)