Jury convicts man in case of emailed mass shooting threat against elementary school

Shoal Creek Elementary File photo courtesy of Shoal Creek Educational Foundation via Facebook A man was convicted Tuesday of sending emailed threats to commit a mass shooting at Shoal Creek Elementary School in Carmel Mountain Ranch A San Diego jury deliberated for about a day before finding Lee Lor guilty of a single felony count of making criminal threats for an email he sent in December that prompted a police response at the campus and Lor s arrest later that day Lor is slated to be sentenced next month The criminal threats count carries a maximum viable sentence of three years in state prison Prosecutors say the email was one of over he sent over the class of several months stating he would commit a shooting at the school located less than a mile from where Lor was living at the time The threatening email cited in the circumstance stated that he was going to commit mass shootings at the school and listed Shoal Creek s address Another email he sent stated I m going to murder a bunch of children while another read Children are going to die and parents can t do nothing about it This will put a smile on my face None of the emails Lor wrote was sent directly to the school Instead Lor replied to random spam emails in his inbox with nearly identical threats against Shoal Creek One of the emails he replied to on Dec landed in the spam folder of a woman in Beverly Hills who alerted police Lor s defense attorney Deputy Community Defender Lucas Hirsty argued his client shouldn t be uncovered guilty because the email was not sent directly to the school and did not specifically threaten its principal Harmeena Omoto who is listed in a criminal complaint as the victim in the episode Omoto testified last week that she felt shock disbelief and fear upon learning of the threat which she explained prompted campus executives to raise the fences surrounding its playground areas She also disclosed she now stands at the school s front gates during on-campus events that are open to the populace and personally checks each person attending the events to see if they have any connection with the school Hirsty argued that because the email lacked any reference to Omoto Lor could not be determined guilty under the law of threatening her A judge dismissed the criminal circumstance against Lor last year saying that it requires a threat to specifically target an individual but prosecutors later refiled the criminal threats count The defense attorney also argued that Lor s practice of replying to spam emails was an outlet for his personal struggles and that he didn t intend to threaten anyone or believe his messages were even being read Deputy District Attorney Savanah Howe disclosed Lor was aware his messages would be taken seriously because six months before sending the email regarding Shoal Creek Lor sent similar emails claiming a shooting was imminent at his workplace which led officers to respond to Lor s workplace Lor was not arrested at the time for the workplace-related emails but the prosecutor revealed He knew this syllabus of action this conduct would lead to the conclusion that it did She also argued that threats made to the school in turn threaten its occupants and in particular its principal A threat to a group of human beings is necessarily a threat to their leader the prosecutor narrated jurors during closing arguments on Monday The defendant should not get a free pass just because he didn t put Principal Omoto s name in the threat Though the prosecution wasn t required to show Lor had any intention of carrying out the shooting prosecutors announced that after his arrest Lor recounted officers he periodically thought about committing the shooting and how he would do it but never could bring himself to go through with it Hirsty stated the jury there was no law outlining that threats to a group represent threats to its leader That s an attempt for the leadership to minimize their burden because they know they don t have the evidence to satisfy this element of the penal code he disclosed The incident has led to a new law that in an early form was sponsored by Assemblymember Darshana Patel D-San Diego San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan among others The bill was merged with a Senate bill which Gov Gavin Newsom signed Oct The new law clarifies that threats to schools universities places of worship healthcare facilities and more are criminal even if a specific person isn t identified as the target Lor named only the school in his threatening emails Patel stated her proposal was prompted by the Shoal Creek threats Times of San Diego contributed to this analysis