A security guard faked a mass shooting report to get out of work

I understand that there are some days that you just don’t want to go to work. But this is not a way to call in sick.

At last weekend’s Lollapalooza in Chicago, a teenage security guard faked a report of a mass shooting so she could leave work earlier. On Friday, August 1, day two of the festival, Janya Williams alleged fired off an anonymous text to her supervisor: “Mass shooting at 4 pm location Lollapalooza. We have 150 targets.” If this had really been the case, it would have been among the worse gun violence carnage America had ever seen.

When Williams’ boss got the text, the message was immediately passed to Chicago Police who were on site. They then alerted the FBI’s Joint Counterterrorism Task Force. Block Club Chicago takes up the story:

When Williams’ supervisor returned to her team, Williams told them that her sister alerted her to a mass shooting threat found on Facebook.

Prosecutors said when Williams was asked to share a screenshot of the post, Williams created a Facebook page under the name “Ben Scott” and wrote out a post that read “Massive shooting at Lollapalooza GrantPark 6:00 p.m.”

Williams took a screenshot of the post, without actually posting it to Facebook, and send the screenshot to her supervisor, prosecutors said.

Through an emergency disclosure request, the FBI and Chicago police were able to determine that it was Williams who sent the initial threat to her supervisor using TextNow, prosecutors said.

When confronted with all the evidence, Williams confessed, saying that she sent both the message and created the fake post just so she could leave work early. She was arrested and released on a US$50,000 bond. Her next court appearance is on Monday.

It’s hard to get good help these days.