A former Missouri University of Science and Technology student was sentenced Thursday to a three-year suspended sentence and five years of probation for posting online threats against black people as the University of Missouri campus was reeling from racial protests in November.

Hunter M. Park, 20, posted that he was going to kill black people on MU�s campus to the anonymous social media app Yik Yak on Nov. 10, the day after weeks of protests led UM System President Tim Wolfe to resign.

Park pleaded guilty in April to making a terroristic threat, a Class C felony that carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

Shortly after the hearing Thursday, Boone County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Brouck Jacobs said he respected circuit Judge Kevin Crane�s decision.

�We hoped for some incarceration, but the fact that he got a felony conviction over a suspended imposition of sentence� is appropriate, Jacobs said.

A suspended execution of a sentence means the felony will stay on Park�s record even if he successfully completes probation. As a convicted felon, Park will be barred from legally possessing a gun.

Traci Wilson-Kleekamp, one of the leaders of local activist group Race Matters, Friends, criticized the sentence shortly after the hearing. The group had encouraged people to write letters urging Judge Crane to impose a harsh sentence. �It pays to be white,� she said.

Jeff Hilbrenner, Park�s lawyer, told Crane none of the people in Missouri convicted of the same crime had been sentenced to prison. Hilbrenner said all of them had been placed on probation, including three of four other people arrested and charged around the same time as Park. One of the other four, a black man, had his charge reduced to a misdemeanor.

�Probation is the appropriate result,� Hilbrenner said. �Hunter posted terrible things on the internet, but everything we were able to show the court showed that is not who Hunter really is.�

Hilbrenner was referring to the dozens of people who came to the courtroom to show support for Park, the letters written on his behalf, work Park had done for others and his accomplishments.

Park�s posts included, �I�m going to stand my ground and shoot every black person I see� and �Some of you are alright. Don�t go to campus tomorrow,� a line similar to one Christopher Harper-Mercer was believed to have written before he killed nine people and himself at a community college in Oregon in October. No weapons were found in Park�s dorm room.

Jacobs argued against a probation term and suspended sentence, saying Park wanted to spread fear on campus because he changed his GPS coordinates on his phone to make the posts appear to come from the MU campus at a time when racial tension was running high. Yik Yak uses geolocation to group posts together by physical location.

Jacobs in court read some of Park�s posts that had not been part of the public record. Nearly all of them used a derogatory term for black people, calling for them to be shot, hanged or burned. In some of his posts, Park also decried that some people dislike the wealthy; he is from the affluent St. Louis suburb of Lake St. Louis.

�This was philosophical hatred on the part of the defendant,� Jacobs said. Park�s goal, Jacobs said, was to make all black people near MU afraid for their lives.

Hilbrenner asked Crane to suspend the imposition of Park�s sentence, citing 60 character reference letters from people who know him, including former teachers and coaches. The threats, Hilbrenner said, were �hateful, racist, sophomoric and criminal,� but Park never intended to shoot anyone.

�There was zero means for Hunter to carry out this stupid and criminal threat,� Hilbrenner said, noting Park had no weapons or car to drive to Columbia from Rolla.

Park had been in counseling before the crime and has continued therapy since, Hilbrenner said. The crime, which happened when news media from all over the world were focused on Columbia, will follow Park for the rest of his life, Hilbrenner said.

Dressed in a dark suit with wavy hair that hung just below his ears, Park read a short letter to Crane, apologizing for his actions and saying he is �embarrassed.�

Many MU students did not attend class Nov. 11 because of the threats, and several Columbia businesses closed for the day.

MU police quickly traced the Yik Yak posts to Park and arrested him in Rolla. Park initially was jailed without bond, but a judge about a week after his arrest changed it to $10,000 cash-only, which his family posted within hours.

His arrest wasn�t the first time Park had run-ins with law enforcement at UM campuses.

In February 2015, police at Missouri S&T were notified that Park had hung a Nazi flag from a second-floor balcony of his residence hall because, according to a police report, he thought his right to free speech was being violated because other students had hung an imperial Japanese flag on campus. Police did not contact Park or arrest him that day.