Black activist made Twitter threat against black Kean students, cops say

A former Kean University student has been charged with making threats targeting black students on campus via a series of Twitter posts.

Acting Union County Prosecutor Grace Park said Kayla-Simone McKelvey, 24, of Union Township left a student rally against racial crimes on Nov. 17, went off to a computer station inside a library and created an anonymous Twitter account she used to tweet the threats.

McKelvey, returned to the rally, according to Park, and helped spread the word among students about the threats. Several threats were tweeted against black students that claimed there was a bomb on campus. Another read, "I will shoot any black person i see at kean university(sic)." Park said there was no plan to follow through with any of the threats.

"We are saddened to learn that the person allegedly responsible was an active participant in the rally that took place on campus on Tuesday, November 17 and is a former student of Kean," read the message from college president Dr. Darwood Farahi. "As a diverse academic community, we wholeheartedly respect and support activism, however, no cause or issue gives anyone the right to threaten the safety of others. We hope this information will begin to bring a sense of relief and security to the campus community."

The 24-year-old "self proclaimed activist" was charged via summons with a single count of third-degree creating a false public alarm. She has a count appearance at the Union County Jail on Dec. 14.

According to The Tower, which describes itself as "the independent voice of Kean University," McKelvey was president of the Pan-African Student Union and spoke at a campus rally last March to protest a Kean professor accused of making racist remarks about Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old Cleveland boy shot dead by Cleveland police in 2014.

At another rally in March, McKelvey claimed that PASU's paperwork turned into the Student Organization office for a trip to the Apollo Theater in Halrem was always deemed incomplete.