Third Missouri man charged for threats against college campus

COLUMBIA, Missouri -- Prosecutors have charged a third Missouri man with posting online threats to attack a college campus.

Nineteen-year-old Tyler Bradenberg, of St. Louis, was charged Thursday with a felony count of making a terrorist threat. An arrest warrant has been issued for him.

Authorities say Brandenberg posted "I'm gonna shoot up this school" on the anonymous messaging app Yik Yak on Wednesday. It was apparently aimed at the Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, where he studied chemical engineering for a semester last fall.

It comes at a time of increased tensions on university campuses across the country after protests led to the resignations of both the president and chancellor of the University of Missouri. The university system's president and the Columbia campus chancellor after racial unrest that included protests, a hunger strike and the football team's threatened boycott of its next game. Activists felt administrators had not done enough to address racial concerns.

University of Missouri police on Wednesday arrested another 19-year-old man suspected of posting online threats to shoot black students and faculty. Campus police arrested Hunter M. Park, 19, in Rolla at 1:50 a.m. and took him to jail in Columbia, about 75 miles to the northwest.

Park made his first court appearance on Thursday and was denied bond. He said nothing during the court appearance by closed-circuit television from the Boone County jail.

Park is charged with making a terroristic threat. Boone County Associate Judge Kimberly Shaw sided with a prosecutor in declining a request by Park's attorney to set bond at $10,000. Shaw ordered Park to remain jailed, pending a Nov. 18 court appearance.

In addition, a 19-year-old Northwest Missouri State University student from Blue Springs has been charged with two counts of making a terrorist threat. Nodaway County Prosecutor Robert Rice on Thursday filed one misdemeanor and one felony count against Connor Stottlemyre, a freshman at the school in Maryville.

Stottlemyre is accused of posting a threat on the Yik Yak social media app that read, "I'm gonna shoot any black people tomorrow, so be ready."

Amid threats, the University of Missouri's governing board on Thursday appointed one of its first black law school graduates to be the university system's interim president, and he vowed to address the frustrations behind student-led protests that helped force his predecessor from office.

Michael Middleton, 68, takes over for Tim Wolfe, who abruptly resigned on Monday amid student-led protests over his administration's handling of racial complaints.

Middleton cited his 30 years at the university, where he was an undergraduate before attending its law school and going on to be a faculty member and administrator.

"I have seen the system grow and excel over the years and I look with great optimism in the future," said Middleton, who resigned in August as deputy chancellor of the system's flagship campus in Columbia.

He said the university "has faced its share of troubling incidents and we recognize that we must move forward as a community.

Middleton had been working part-time with the campus' chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, on a plan to increase inclusion and diversity at the school. Loftin also announced Monday he was stepping down at the end of the year and would take another position at the school, but the governing board said in a statement Thursday that the timeline had been accelerated and that the interim chancellor, Hank Foley, has already assumed the role.

The resignations came after 30 black members of the football team gave a big boost to the protest movement by vowing not to take part in team activities until Wolfe was gone.

MU Policy Now, a student group made up of graduate and professional students, had been pushing for Middleton's appointment.

"Given the recent turmoil, Deputy Chancellor Emeritus Middleton is a strong transitional figure," the group wrote in a letter of endorsement posted on its Facebook page and sent to curators. Several student organizations signed the recommendation letter, including the Legion of Black Collegians.

Middleton has a bachelor's degree from Missouri and became one of the first black graduates of the law school in 1971. He worked with the federal government in Washington and was a trial attorney in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division before joining the university law faculty in 1985.

He also helped found the Legion of Black Collegians, a student group involved in the current protest, and himself participated in previous campus protests for civil rights and against the Vietnam War.

He was interim vice provost for minority affairs and faculty development starting in 1997, and a year later was named deputy chancellor.

In that role, he was credited with turning women's studies and black studies programs into their own departments.