A resident of Buffalo, New York, has admitted to police that he created an anonymous Twitter account to tweet out a fake threat that he intended to carry out a mass killing of Black people, just days after the deadly mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Market by a white supremacist who targeted Black people, NBC News reports.
Rolik Walker, who is Black, told investigators that the purpose of the tweet "was to see what everyone would say and if anyone would agree with him."
Walker reportedly told investigators that he also created a second account “in an effort to rectify the earlier post.” He replaced “only looking to kill blacks” with “ants, spiders and things of that nature.”
According to Law&Crime, the FBI said there was probable cause to conclude that Walker violated a law which criminalizes “in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another.”
“WALKER also admitted that he used the VPN service IPVanish to hide his IP address when he created the @CoklinHero Twitter account and the post,” the FBI's affidavit said. “WALKER stated that the purpose of the post was to see what everyone would say and if anyone would agree with him.”
“WALKER claimed to want to see how segregated social media was and that once the post was made it spread within approximately thirty seconds,” the affidavit continued. “WALKER stated that the account did not have any followers. WALKER stated that he created an additional Twitter account, @ConklinHeroR1. WALKER claimed he created this second account in an effort to rectify the earlier post. WALKER copied and pasted the same post, removed the statement ‘only looking to kill blacks’ and changed it to ants, spiders, and things of that nature.”
The offense is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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Read the full affidavit over at Law&Crime.