A college student's unbridled passion for her school's football team crossed into criminal territory and now, she's facing a terrorism charge.
Meredith Lile Uluave Miller, a 21-year-old engineering student at the University of Utah, was arrested after she threatened to blow up an on-campus nuclear reactor if the football team lost over the weekend.
Miller is accused of making the threat on social media Saturday, shortly before the Utes' game against San Diego State. According to police, Miller a message on YikYak that said: "If we don’t win today, I'm detonating the nuclear reactor on campus."
On Wednesday, she acknowledged posting the statement and was taken to the Salt Lake County Jail, police said. She's facing one count of threatening terrorism, a second-degree felony.
Miller allegedly told investigators that her statement was meant as a joke, but police pointed out that "Utah law doesn’t distinguish between jokes or terroristic threats that are not attempted or not possible."
"Just don't do it: Don’t post a threat on social media. We have a zero-tolerance policy for these kinds of threats," University Police Chief Jason Hinojosa said in a statement. "In the age that we’re living in, we have to take every threat seriously."
Police noted that the university's nuclear reactor is secured, and police have unique protocols for managing any breach of the facility, which is located in the school's engineering building.
"The reactor is inherently safe," Glenn Sjoden, director of the Nuclear Engineering Program, said in a statement. "However, idle threats made to the facility are treated seriously, and we encourage folks to really bear in mind that nuclear facilities are always treated with the utmost respect and safety; therefore, the government and law enforcement will take any action necessary to mitigate any threat made."
By the way, the University of Utah ended up beating San Diego State 35-7.
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