BAKERSFIELD, CA - Bakersfield College is investigating a threat made online Thursday.
The post stated a student would walk into the cafeteria with a shotgun and kill a group of people who are consistently too loud.
Administrators are calling the threat a hate crime. It was posted on a Facebook page called BC Confessions.
"Whoever made the post wanted to kill these individuals sitting at a certain table because they are loud during the course of lunch and others are trying to study in the cafeteria. And, that they would use a gun to basically eliminate the problem," said Amber Chiang, spokeswoman, Bakersfield College.
Three days after an attempted armed robbery at the college, students shifted their attention to an online threat, now under investigation.
"When those posts turn to threats against students, we have to take them incredibly seriously to the best of our ability, under the sort of constraint of a page that's completely anonymous," said Chiang.
BC Confessions allows students to confess anything they want, without having to give any information on who they are. Administrators say the page surfaced in the beginning of March.
"Bakersfield College has no authority over the page unfortunately, but it does look though the college is administering the page and that is completely incorrect," said Chiang.
Friday, the threat was taken down.
Someone later wrote he or she was the person who posted it, saying in part, "I am the poster of the shotgun confession. I will admit now, it was wrong."
Gabe Ulloa is a social media expert with AARC Technology in Bakersfield and says students are posting their confessions using a tool called SurveyMonkey.com.
"There's one or more random people out there managing this page and have access to the SurveyMonkey data who are then pulling the data off SurveyMonkey, a free tool, and then putting it on the Facebook page," he explained.
Ulloa says SurveyMonkey is a popular survey website used by businesses across the country.
He says when a person creates a page on Facebook and uses SurveyMonkey, they have the option to display information or remain anonymous.
Administrators say they have made numerous attempts to have Facebook remove the page, but Facebook told the college it's not a priority.