Exchange Student Who Threatened St. Thomas Aquinas College Released on Bail

A Spanish exchange student who posted a threat against his college on social media made a court appearance yesterday, The Journal News/lohud.com reported. Inigo Aldecoa-Tapia did not enter a plea and was released.

The judge banned him from the St. Thomas Aquinas College campus, according to News 12.

He had been held since Oct. 5 on $10,000 bail, after a student alerted officials at STAC to the alarming message. He is charged with making a terroristic threat, a felony, and second-degree aggravated harassment, a misdemeanor

A college official told TJN reporter Steve Lieberman that Aldecoa-Tapia is on interim suspension, cannot come on campus without calling security first, and must be accompanied by a security guard if ever he is on campus.

Students told The Journal News that the message about a “massacre” being planned was sent out on Yik Yak, an app popular with students that allows one to post anonymously and see what others are posting within a certain geographic radius.

Its use has been accompanied by so much cyberbullying and threats that by March 2014 it had blocked 85 percent of the country’s high schools.

PHOTO: News 12 report “St. Thomas Aquinas College terror suspect released from jail.”