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Racist threats against Latinos at Cal State Long Beach investigated

By Eric DuVall
Officials at Cal State Long Beach said university police and the FBI are investigating racist death threats made against the Latino student group La Raza on its Facebook page. Photo by Buchanan-Hermit via Wikimedia Commons
Officials at Cal State Long Beach said university police and the FBI are investigating racist death threats made against the Latino student group La Raza on its Facebook page. Photo by Buchanan-Hermit via Wikimedia Commons

Sept. 23 (UPI) -- The FBI and university police are investigating racist death threats and anti-Semitic posts made against student groups at Cal State Long Beach this week.

Anonymous posters on Facebook threatened to shoot members of the school's La Raza Student Association, a Latino student group. Fliers with the image of Adolf Hitler and the message "finish what he started" were hung in the school's multicultural center, as well.

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Cal State Long Beach President Jane Close Conoley said in an email to students and staff that university police notified the FBI, which is "aggressively investigating" the threats.

"I'm saddened to report this to you," Conoley wrote, "but I want you to know that each incident reflecting intolerance and hate is being reported to the FBI and is receiving priority attention from university police."

University police Lt. Richard Goodwin told the student newspaper the Daily 49er the department was treating the incident as a "terrorist threat" and is working with federal law enforcement to identify those responsible.

"Anything that can be taken as a terrorist threat, we involve our fellow agencies," Goodwin said. "We would seek their knowledge with regard to this to see if they have, for example, a person that we were looking at in a particular case."

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He also said the university had stationed officers outside the La Raza Student Center building.

The Nazi-themed fliers have appeared on campus periodically over the previous six months, but the direct threat to La Raza was made on Wednesday. A university spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times investigators do not believe the two are related.

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