A student at Florida Atlantic University made his irritation with a lecturer known over social media, and it resulted in his arrest.
As reported by ABC 10 News, 20-year-old Rafael Decomas of Riviera Beach was arrested last week after it was found that he had threatened to kill his lecturer on Twitter. The arrest charge was over a “written threat to kill.”
At 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning last week, Decomas wrote, “Bey I gern f**ing kill dis professor bey this is my confession to a premeditated murder.” It was posted by the account “@Ashelaniqua, Cutie Claus,” and police were able to trace it back to Decomas after a short online investigation through his involvement with the Caribbean Student Association that was frequently mentioned on the Twitter account.
Following his arrest, the police report revealed the reason for Decomas’ tweet. The professor in question, Carl Weiss, had scheduled the final exam for the data structure class at 7 a.m. at the Boca Raton campus of FAU. According to Decomas, because of the fact that he lives in Riviera Beach, this meant he would have had to wake up at 5 a.m. the morning of the exam in order to be on time to take the paper. He readily confessed that it was him who had posted the tweet in question.
“Decomas stated he did not intend to harm anyone and tweeted the post out of frustration,” the report said. “Decomas advised that he deleted the post soon after publishing it.”
Decomas’ lack of intent will have no effect on the charge he faces, as a written threat to kill or do bodily injury is still a criminal offense. He was officially charged on Wednesday. Despite this, the records show that he was released on a $5,000 bond from the Palm Beach County Jail shortly after his arrest and statement to police.
The threat was first brought to the attention of the police after campus security were notified in an anonymous tip of the tweet that Decomas had posted.
According to the university, exam times are determined months in advance, and more often than not before the semester even begins.
Speaking after Decomas’ arrest, other students on the FAU campus warned of the dangers of ranting online and threatening violence over social media, given how seriously these threats are taken and how quickly people can see and alert authorities to the messages.
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