Man threatens to poison players after college basketball loss, California police say

An Indiana man is accused of threatening two California basketball teams after a championship game, local news outlets report.

The threats, sent on Facebook, were first directed at players on California State University Long Beach’s basketball team after California State University Fullerton’s 72-71 victory over the team in the Big West Tournament championship game on March 12, the Long Beach Post reported.

The man sent threatening direct messages to the Long Beach State Athletics page, saying the university should be “blown up,” authorities told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

According to a warrant filed in Long Beach Superior Court, the man also threatened to poison players and hurt a member of one coach’s family, the Long Beach Post reported.

Most of the threats seemed directed toward Long Beach’s senior point guard, Colin Slater, who was the second-leading scorer and earned the team 23 points in the game, according to the Long Beach Post.

The threats toward Slater included a photo of the man holding a knife and saying he would die “by a bullet,” authorities told CBSLA. He also made racist comments toward Slater.

“(The threats) were pretty specific, they were menacing,” Cal State Long Beach University Police Lt. Carol Almaguer told the Press-Telegram. “The nature of the threats were against their lives basically; there were some racial slurs within that same text thread.”

According to the search warrant, the man also targeted Fullerton’s team, including with threats to slit the throats of the children of whoever ran the team’s Facebook page, the Long Beach Post reported.

In a Tweet, Cal State Long Beach President Jane Close Conoley commended the campus police department, saying they had arrested an individual “to be prosecuted out of state for sending death threats to a student.”

Police hope to file two felony counts of intimidation with a deadly weapon against the man accused of making the threats. At least one victim of the threats plans to pursue additional charges against the man, CBSLA reported.

Cal State Long Beach called the threats “abhorrent” and said it’s “fully engaged in pursuing this matter” in a statement to McClatchy News.

“In response to these threats, the university has provided the players impacted with support during the investigation,” it said.

Cal State Fullerton and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana did not immediately respond to requests for comment from McClatchy News.