Cornell student Patrick Dai’s mom feared for son’s mental well-being ahead of alleged antisemitic threats, would bring him home on weekends
The “suicidal” Cornell University engineering student who was arrested for threatening to kill Jews on campus apparently delivered his promise of violence online from his mom’s house, where he stayed on the weekends because she “worried about his mental health.”
Patrick Dai’s mom, Bing Liu, spoke through tears at her home outside Rochester about how she feared for her son’s well-being before his arrest in an interview with the city’s Democrat and Chronicle Tuesday.
“Because I worry about his mental health, every Friday after his lessons … I went to Cornell to bring him back home, then I’d take him back Sunday night,” she told the newspaper.
Dai, 21, was nabbed by the feds on Halloween after he threatened to shoot up a dining hall that caters to Jewish students and execute other Jews with an “assault rifle.” He allegedly made the threat sometime in late October from his home.
The incident came after the Ivy League campus in leafy Ithaca, NY, was on edge follow a spate of antisemitic graffiti that emerged after a professor said he found Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack “exhilarating.”
Liu claimed her son’s threats were partly triggered by his use of the anti-depressant Lexapro — which was actually making him more depressed — and was worried he now has “no future” after facing five years in federal prison for posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications.
Liu chided the Department of Justice for not mentioning that Dai apologized for his promise of mass murder in an online post hours later.
”Apologies,” the post reportedly began. “There is no room for divisive statements in person or online. I am sorry.”
The missive went on to call his threats against his “innocent” classmates “shameful,” and was signed “a depressed suicidal person.”
“Why didn’t they reveal this important piece of information?” his mom asked. “Also, why didn’t the school?”
Liu — who studied in Israel decades ago and displays a Star of David in her home — claims to have been “shocked” when reading about her son’s admitted threats and said she had not slept since.
She told the outlet that she worries Dai is not getting treatment for his depression in the Broome County jail.
“I worry about him,” Liu said. “He needs to take medication.”
School officials last week called for Dai to be “prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” and Monica Gebel, executive director at the Levine Center to End Hate at the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester, told the paper that Dai should be held fully accountable, despite his apology.
“The Israel-Hamas war has unleashed such vitriol online against Jews and Muslims both and with such misinformation behind the messaging that the mainstreaming of outright hate was now acceptable,” she said of her fears.
“I thought that we had truly entered the era where harassment and hate speech against Jewish students publicly was now mainstreamed and that student antisemitism was no longer something that people hid,” Gebel said of her reaction to the threats.
The Anti-Defamation League said Sunday there had been a 388% increase in harassment of and assaults on Jewish people in the US since war erupted in the region a month ago.
