SJSU Grad Student Arrested for Threatening Graffiti

A graduate student at San José State University is facing federal criminal charges for allegedly leaving a note in a campus bathroom last fall that warned of a “mass bomb,” called to “kill all Muslims” and asserted that “this is a white nation.” 

According to the Justice Department’s news release, the offending note was discovered Nov. 5, 2025. A photograph of the note shows that it contained drawings of swastikas alongside several handwritten phrases such as “!WARNING! MASS BOMB NEXT WEEK.”

Law enforcement found the fingerprints of 30-year-old Ziheng “Tony” Fang on the paper. He was arrested and charged with false information and hoaxes May 20 and appeared in a San José federal court earlier this week. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to five years in federal prison. 

Since October 2024, SJSU Police Department personnel have reportedly found more than 20 “hateful and threatening” messages, and many have specified dates of future attacks and weapons that might be involved.

Investigators say Fang used his key card to access the buildings where several of the messages were found in the days leading up to their discovery. Surveillance camera footage also shows Fang entering and exiting the restrooms where some of the messages were written up to a day before their discovery. 

The threatening notes have periodically led to canceled classes and concern among students, faculty and staff.  

“The incidents of graffiti containing threats of violence, along with antisemitic, Islamophobic, racial and other discriminatory slurs against members of our campus community, caused real fear and harmed every member of the San José State Spartan community,” SJSU spokesperson Michelle Smith McDonald told KQED, San Francisco’s NPR affiliate.  “Our Jewish and Muslim students, faculty and staff experienced these hateful acts in deeply personal ways.”