An 18-year-old security guard was arrested at Lollapalooza over the weekend after she allegedly sent text and Facebook messages purporting to threaten a mass shooting at the annual event.
Janya Williams, a security guard hired for the weekend festival, was charged with a felony count of making a terrorist threat after allegedly sending the messages while she was on duty at the concert.
According to prosecutors, a supervisor received a text message during the festival that threatened a mass shooting at Grant Park.
“Mass shooting at 4 p.m. Location: Lollapalooza,” the text read. “We have 150 targets.”
The FBI’s Joint Counterterrorism Task Force and Chicago police were notified of the threat, according to documents.
Later, Williams allegedly told her supervisor that her sister had alerted her to another mass shooting threat on Facebook, and showed her a message that was actually a screenshot of a message that wasn’t actually posted to the platform.
The FBI determined that the phone used to send the initial threat via “TextNow” was associated with Williams.
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Williams was located at an entrance to the festival, and was escorted to a command post.
During questioning, she allegedly gave a statement admitting to sending the threats. According to Block Club Chicago, she allegedly said that she made the threats in order to get off of work early.
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Charges were filed over the weekend, and Williams appeared in bond court this week, with bond set at $50,000.
