UPDATE | YSU students paint the Rock with an American flag and patriotic messages

YOUNGSTOWN

After someone painted The Rock outside Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center with pro-ISIS messages, a group of students decided to take back one of the campus’s most iconic symbols.

Jordan Wolfe, a senior and political science major from Boardman, set up the Facebook page Monday, inviting students to repaint The Rock with the American flag and patriotic messages.

“We wanted to show that YSU students don’t support the propaganda that was on there,” he said.

Between Sunday night and Monday morning, someone painted “France deserves destruction,” “We are coming,” “YSU supports ISIS” and a symbol resembling the ISIS flag on The Rock.

The translation of the writing on the ISIS flag is “There is no god but Allah [God]. Mohammad is the messenger of Allah.”

Wolfe, however, said an international student told him the Arabic on the rock was spelled incorrectly.

He believes the messages contribute to what he called “Islamophobia.”

University crews painted over the messages shortly after they were discovered, said Shannon Tirone, associate vice president for university relations.

The threat isn’t believed to be credible.

Special Agent Todd Werth, who leads the Youngstown FBI office, said the agency takes such matters seriously but that “at this point, there is no specific, credible threat to Youngstown State or the Youngstown area.”

Read MUCH MORE in Tuesday's VINDICATOR.