‘The next person to speak dies’: York student makes death threat in library

A student has been removed from campus after he wrote death threats on the wall of the University of York library.

At about 10:20pm on a Monday, the man entered the library and wrote: "A death threat is a death threat. You have an hour."

The man returned an hour later, shouting that the next person who spoke would die, before being taken away by campus security.

The Tab can now exclusively reveal the man to be Sam Grigg, 23, who previously threatened to throw eggs at Boris Johnson during a Brexit rally, before being talked out of it by the former Mayor of London.

Sam Grigg previously turned up with eggs at a Boris Johnson Brexit rally in order to "cause a scene"

Students had alerted library staff to the message, who called security to remove it.

They then spoke to one of the students in the library, who was allegedly a former housemate of the man.

An hour later, the mystery man came back in. One eyewitness told The Tab: "It was a bit early, so I thought that might not be the right person, but I wasn't really paying attention because I was trying to do work."

Sam then started pacing and shouting before approaching the student and saying: "I said next person to speak."

They replied: "The next person to speak what?"

Sam responded: "dies", and pulled a whiteboard marker out of his pocket.

Security arrived moments later and seized Sam, kicking the pen away from him, before escorting him out of the library.

Campus security wiped the message off the wall

The day before Sam had allegedly written a list of demands on the library wall:

A second year Computer Science undergrad who was in the library when the death threat was written, said it took a while for people to notice the message. But, once everyone on the floor saw it, they "got a bit excited, but a lot of people thought it was just a joke."

Emma added: "The guy looked very intimidating and his facial expression remained serious throughout."

In a statement, the University told The Tab:

“Security staff attended the University library on 23 October at 10.30pm after receiving a call that a student, who is currently on a leave of absence, had written a threatening message on a noticeboard.

“The student was escorted from the premises and has had all access to University buildings removed. The University’s disciplinary procedure is being followed.”

A further statement was provided by the university clarifying the status of the individual involved and the action the University was taking:

“The individual involved in the incident at the University library is no longer a registered student at the University and we are in the process of excluding them from our campus."

Did you see what happened? If so please get in touch with us: [email protected]