Trial begins in case of emailed mass shooting threat against San Diego elementary school

Shoal Creek Elementary File photo credit Shoal Creek Educational Foundation via Facebook Opening statements and witness testimony were delivered Wednesday in the trial of a man accused of sending emailed threats about a mass shooting at a San Diego school Lee Lor is accused of sending hundreds of separate emails over the curriculum of several months stating he would commit a shooting at Shoal Creek Elementary School in Carmel Mountain Ranch The campus is located less than a mile from where Lor was living at the time He faces a single felony count of making criminal threats in connection with one of those emails sent in December which prompted a police response at the campus and Lor s arrest later that day Prosecutors say none of the emails was sent directly to the school Instead Lor allegedly replied to random spam emails in his inbox with nearly identical threats to shoot up Shoal Creek One of the emails he allegedly replied to landed in the spam folder of a woman in Beverly Hills She alerted police Deputy District Attorney Clay Biddle mentioned in his opening report that while all the messages were largely similar chosen of the emails contained unique language such as 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 Biddle noted the email that sent police to the school left the campus in a terrifying tailspin that lingers to this day After his arrest Lor allegedly informed investigators that he wrote the messages because he was angry and depressed He also informed detectives that he owned a rifle and periodically thought of committing the shooting but couldn t bring himself to follow through with it Biddle reported Lor s defense attorney Deputy Residents Defender Lucas Hirsty described jurors that while his client wrote troubling things in the emails prosecutors would not be able to prove that he intended to threaten the school s principal Harmeena Omoto who is listed as the charged victim in the occurrence While the emails named the school and listed its address none directly referenced Omoto or were sent to her or school leaders Hirsty also disclosed investigators were never able to locate evidence indicating Lor had concrete plans to commit a shooting such as a manifesto or maps of the school The defense attorney stated his client was dealing with personal issues at the time including the loss of his father and other loved ones which led him to author the hundreds of emails as an outlet for his personal struggles Hirsty reported Lor didn t believe the spam messages he replied to would ever in fact be read by anyone You might find yourself at the conclusion of this trial thinking what Mr Lor did or explained was reprehensible But that doesn t make it a crime Hirsty advised the jury The felony count Lor faces was previously dismissed by a judge but prosecutors re-filed the charge a limited weeks later The original charged casualties in the episode were Lor s neighbors Prosecutors argued the alleged threat regarding the school originated out of the defendant s belief that his neighbors were angered by him smoking outside his home and that he sent the threat because he mistakenly held the neighbors had children attending Shoal Creek Elementary A judge ruled that threats must be specific toward the person allegedly threatened and dismissed the episode because the neighbors were not mentioned in the emails When prosecutors charged Lor again they named Omoto as the victim Though Lor is only charged in connection with the alleged school threat the jury also heard evidence of emails Lor allegedly sent to his former employer which claimed a mass shooting would occur at his workplace Police were contacted in June about one of those emails which stated Lor s neighbors were going to commit the shooting Lor allegedly narrated a police officer who responded to the scene that he made up the claim against his neighbors and the officer described him it was potentially criminal but did not arrest him The episode has led to a new law that in its early form was sponsored by Assemblymember Darshana Patel D-San Diego San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan the California District Attorney Association and the California Police Chiefs Association The bill was merged with a Senate bill which Gov Gavin Newsom signed Saturday The new law clarifies that threats to schools universities places of worship clinical facilities and more are criminal even if a specific person isn t identified Patel stated the initial proposal was prompted by the Shoak Creek threats Times of San Diego staff contributed to this analysis