Chester City teenager charged with making terrorist threats on Instagram

The emoji-laden threats, which promised gun violence and said “all blacks must die,” were posted from an anonymous account and redacted quickly.

But not quickly enough to slip under the radar of authorities, said Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan. “Chester City contacted the FBI and contacted our forensic lab,” leading to a six-hour investigation into the location of the sender, he said.

They tracked the IP address of the poster to a house in Chester, where a 17-year-old was apprehended at a sleepover during the wee hours of Wednesday morning. She admitted to making the remarks and indicated that they were a prank, although authorities are continuing to investigate any further threat of violence.

The teenager, who herself is black, is now in custody and will face charges of making terrorist threats and unlawful use of a computer, Whelan said.

“Her cell phone in this particular case is a computer in [her] pocket,” said Whelan. Threats like these, even if they don’t intent to be carried out, go beyond a prank or a game, he said.

Whelan could not say what kind of sentencing would go along with these charges, but he did say the teenager would be charged as a juvenile.

Chester-Upland and Chichester School districts — both targeted in the threat — remained open after posting messages on Facebook and the school website that there was “no longer a threat.”