A former midshipman who posted a social media threat that prompted concerns about a potential active shooter and resulted in two injuries at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland last week is facing a criminal charge, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
The former midshipman, Jackson Fleming, 23, of Chesterton, Ind., is charged with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate communication, prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Indiana said on Tuesday.
Mr. Fleming attended the academy from June 30, 2021, to Jan. 5, 2024, Cmdr. Ashley Hockycko said.
Amid the initial chaos and confusion caused by the online threat and ensuing emergency response last Thursday, a midshipman mistook a law enforcement officer for the shooter and struck him in the head with a parade rifle, military officials said. The law enforcement officer then fired at the midshipman, wounding him in the arm, they also said.
Both were treated at a hospital and released, the officials said.
The false threat against the campus was made on a social media platform, but prosecutors did not say what platform it was posted on. It caused the campus to go into lockdown and provoked a flood of misinformation on social media.
At the end of the day, no active shooter was believed to have been present on the campus, where about 4,400 midshipmen are enrolled.
The threat was traced to a laptop belonging to a midshipman who left the academy early last year and was confirmed to be in his parents’ house in the Midwest, officials said. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office declined to comment further.
A lawyer for Mr. Fleming, Jonathan S. Bedi, said in an email statement that he was confident that “when the complete facts emerge,” Mr. Fleming “will be vindicated.”
The charge that Mr. Fleming faces carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Emails shared with The New York Times on the day of the threat showed that an academy midshipman standing watch had warned students to “Get inside” and lock their doors. About 20 minutes later, Capt. David S. Forman, a school official, said in an email to midshipmen that there were no confirmed reports of gunfire.
The threat came as academic campuses across the country had been facing “swatting” calls, or unfounded threats of a shooter or a bomb. It also occurred amid heightened tension in the wake of the murder of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus.
The Naval Academy, located on the banks of the Severn River, is a four-year college that prepares students, called midshipmen, to be commissioned as officers in the Navy and Marine Corps.