Ominous messages left on 4chan day before Oregon college killings [Updated]

Update, 10/2: Since the original report, a shooting suspect has been named. Some responders to the original 4chan postings tried and failed to identify the man. Other responses also encouraged the poster in question to carry out an attack. And law enforcement officials are trying to determine whether the shooter posted the 4chan ominous warnings.

Postings referencing school violence in the Northwest appeared on the message board 4chan a day before Thursday’s mass killings that left 10 dead and many more injured at an Oregon community college.

One anonymous message addressed to “fellow robots” hoped readers would have “an enjoyable Elliot Rodger day”—a reference to the shooter who killed six near a Santa Barbara university last year. Another message read, “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest.”

“I suggest you enter a classroom and tell people that you will take them as hostages. Make everyone get in one corner and then open fire. Make sure that there is no way that someone can disarm you as it it possible. I suggest you carry a knife on your belt as last resort if someone is holding your gun,” one comment said.

The shootings began around 10:30am PT Thursday at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, police said. The incident ended when the unidentified shooter was gunned down in an exchange of bullets with police. The killer was identified as a 26-year-old man named Chris Harper Mercer, CBS reported on Twitter. He was not believed to have been a current or former student or staff member at the school.

Because of the anonymous nature of 4chan, it’s still not known whether the shooting suspect wrote the postings on the message board or whether it was merely an anonymous 4chan user making hyperbolic threats. It’s not the first time an ominous message appeared on the site ahead of a killing, however. In 2013, a man who shot two women at a Virginia shopping mall announced his crimes in advance on 4chan and even gave his name.