The San Jose State University Police Department and the FBI have captured a man they say is the culprit behind a series of violent, hateful written messages left in the university's men's and gender-neutral bathrooms.
The scrawled threats warned of bombings and knife and gun violence and sparked fear on campus, authorities say.
The suspect was identified as Ziheng “Tony” Fang, 30, of San Jose, a graduate student pursuing a master's degree in data science. Fang was arrested and charged with one federal count of false information and deception, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Although Fang was charged with a single incident, authorities allege the defendant was responsible for a series of hate messages found throughout the Northern California campus.
Citing a criminal complaint, the Justice Department said police had identified 20 separate cases in which Fang allegedly left these messages in bathrooms. The messages had been appearing sporadically since October 2024, with the last one seen on May 14 of this year, authorities said. In several cases, according to a Justice Department news release, messages left in bathrooms included “threats that specified a particular date on which an attack was allegedly intended to occur.” Additionally, the threats included the weapons or methods of the planned attack, the agency said, citing court records.
A message in a plastic sleeve, found on Nov. 5 last year, had Fang's fingerprint on it, prosecutors said, and another message was found in that same bathroom scrawled on the wall, calling for the death of multiple ethnic groups and warning of mass bombings.
The message on the paper found on Nov. 5 read, in messy handwriting: “WARNING! MASSIVE BOMB NEXT WEEK,” and included several swastika symbols, images of the poster show.
According to the Department of Justice, the criminal complaint stated that investigators noted the times Fang used a key card to access school buildings and said that in 16 cases, threatening messages were found in bathrooms in the following days.
In other cases, Fang was seen on surveillance footage entering and leaving bathrooms or areas near bathrooms, up to a day before the messages were found, prosecutors said.
Because of these threats to school property and student safety, the San Jose State president's office sent several email and text message alerts to students and staff “prior to the dates on which the attacks were allegedly anticipated,” the complaint states, according to the Department of Justice. When these messages were issued, campus professors independently “decided whether or not to cancel the class or hold it virtually.”
The alerts caused widespread alarm. In the days of the alleged threats, the campus buildings mentioned were like a “ghost town,” prosecutors said.
Fang is in federal custody after being arrested Friday and will have a detention hearing Thursday, where a judge will decide whether he will be released while his case is pending.
Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.
