Man who threatened U. of C. appears in FBI ‘think before you post’ ad

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Police officers stand watch in the Main Quadrangles on the Hyde Park Campus of the University of Chicago on Nov. 2015. The university president closed the campus after the university was informed by the FBI that a threat of gun violence was made against the school specifically mentioning the “campus quad.” | Scott Olson/Getty Images

The words Jabari Dean wrote online in November 2015 changed his life.

His post closed down the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus and landed him in front of a federal judge.

In the end, the feds chose to defer prosecution. But on Thursday, he appeared in a new public service announcement from the FBI’s Chicago field office encouraging people to “think before you post.”

“People took it as a terrorist threat,” Dean says on the ad. “The university got shut down. I got arrested by the FBI. And now, I don’t know what my future looks like. I search for my name on the web almost every day and look at the stuff. It’s not going away.”

The FBI says it receives thousands of reports about threats made over social media. Many are jokes, but it says law enforcement takes each one seriously — and “the public rightfully expects no less.”

“What this college student posted and took down in less than a minute resulted in a lifetime of consequences,” the FBI said.

Dean’s post on the website worldstarhiphop.com came days after the release of video that captured Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times — a shooting that led to murder charges against Van Dyke. Dean wrote:

“This is my only warning. At 10 a.m. on Monday mourning (sic) I am going to the campus quad of the University of Chicago. I will be armed with a M-4 Carbine and 2 Desert Eagles all fully loaded. I will execute aproximately (sic) 16 white male students and or staff, which is the same number of time (sic) Mcdonald (sic) was killed. I then will die killing any number of white policemen that I can in the process. This is not a joke. I am to do my part to rid the world of the white devils. I expect you to do the same . . .”

Dean quickly deleted the post. But someone sent a screenshot to the FBI. Then the University of Chicago abruptly canceled classes and activities on the Hyde Park campus after FBI counterterrorism officials warned the school of the threat.

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