Zachary Petrizzo
Campus Reform
October 12, 2018
A member of student government at Ohio University has been charged with a misdemeanor after she allegedly made false statements to police about receiving threatening messages.
Anna Ayers, who is a member of the OU student senate, was arrested Monday and charged by the Ohio University Police Department with three separate counts of “making false alarms.” It is alleged that Ayers falsely reported multiple threatening messages, including a “death threat,” which she claims was because of her being a member of the LGBTQ community.
But an OU police department investigation revealed that Ayers’ claims were false. The probe further uncovered that Ayers had “placed the messages herself, prior to reporting them,” according to an OU police statement.
“Ayers previously reported receiving a series of threatening messages, two of them in the Student Senate office, and one of them at her residence,” the OU Police Department’s statement reads, adding that, “subsequent investigation by OUPD found that Ayers had placed the messages herself, prior to reporting them.”
Ayers, the former student senate appropriations commissioner, reported to the student senate last week that she received a note in the student senate office on September 27, which she said “expressed extreme hatred… because of who I am,” according to an article in The Post, a student-run newspaper on campus.
The following week, October 6, Ayers thanked supporters on Twitter for being with her “during a pretty awful time.”
The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at OU, which Ayers attends, tweeted its support for the former student senator.
Ayers alleged that she received additional death threats contained within messages on notes. The messages took aim at her identity as an LGBTQ community member, according to her account.
“Making ‘false alarms’ is a…