Texas Man Sent Racial Threat To Student In Mansfield: Police

MANSFIELD TOWNSHIP, NJ — A Texas man has been indicted after sending a message telling a high school student in Burlington County that “all the black people at the school should be shot,” authorities announced.

Kenneth Petersen, 21 of Stephenville, Texas, sent the message anonymously to a Northern Burlington Regional High School student using the messaging app “GroupMe” in May 2018, according to authorities.

The student had created the group to discuss senior pranks, according to Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina. Graduation was coming up, and no one knew where the message had come from, authorities said. As a result, there was increased police presence at the graduation ceremonies.

However, authorities soon determined that the message had come from out-of-state, and no students or staff were in immediate danger, authorities said.

After further investigation, detectives determined the message had come from Petersen, who was attending Tarleton State University at the time. He was arrested in September 2019, authorities said.

It isn’t clear what led Petersen to target this particular group, but access to the group chat was available to anyone with a GroupMe account. Authorities said the group chat had been discussed on other social media platforms.

“There can never be any tolerance for racially-motivated threats like this and, especially during recent times when we have seen threats escalate to actual acts of violence, law enforcement must respond with the utmost seriousness,” Coffina said. “You cannot hide behind a cell phone halfway across the country while spewing such hatred.”

Petersen was indicted by a grand jury on one count of fourth-degree bias intimidation. The indictment was returned January 9 and signed by Prosecutor Coffina.

The alleged incident represents some disturbing growing trends. A report from The Lead Fund released last year showed a rise in the number of hate incidents motivated by race, religion and sexuality is on the rise.

Of those interviewed for the report released in February of last year, 38 percent said a hate incident took place at least once a semester. This was an increase from 16 percent from the year before.

The Nation explored the connection between social media and racially-motivated hate incidents, and how colleges respond.

In New Jersey, the number of racial bias incidents that were reported increased by 65 percent last year, the Attorney General’s Office reported last week. Preliminary numbers show that there were 944 reported incidents in 2019, according to Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal.

This is the highest annual total number of bias incidents reported since 1996, and the largest year-over-year increase since bias crimes reporting standards were enacted in 1991. The final total for number of bias incidents reported in New Jersey last year will be reported in the spring.