A man arrested last year on suspicion of sending out emailed threats to commit a mass shooting at an elementary school in San Diego pleaded not guilty Friday to a newly refiled charge of making criminal threats.
Lee Lor, 39, is accused of sending more than 350 separate emails over the course of six months stating he would commit a shooting at Shoal Creek Elementary School in the Carmel Mountain neighborhood.
Lor remained in custody without bail for the 10 months following his December 2023 arrest, but earlier this month, San Diego Superior Court Judge Aaron Katz dismissed the criminal threats charges against Lor, ruling the charges concerned Lor's neighbors rather than anyone connected with the school.
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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 believed the neighbors had children attending Shoal Creek Elementary.
While the emails Lor sent mentioned the school, they did not reference his neighbors in any way, and Katz ruled the law requires the threat be specific toward the person allegedly threatened.
According to preliminary hearing testimony, none of the emails was sent directly to the school.
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District Attorney's Investigator Yanci Blackwell testified during that hearing that through a review of the defendant's emails, it was discovered these messages were sent out in seemingly random replies to numerous spam emails he received in his inbox.
One of those emails landed in the spam folder of a woman in Beverly Hills, who alerted police. Lor was arrested and the ensuing police investigation revealed that he lived less than a mile from the school.
After the case was dismissed, Lor was released from custody, but was re-arrested two weeks later on a new criminal threats count. He is being held without bail following Friday's arraignment.
This time, the criminal-threats count names Shoal Creek's principal as the victim.
Lor's defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Lucas Hirsty, argued in court that Lor never made any direct threat toward the principal and said prosecutors have filed various charges against his client, naming different penal codes and victims, the most recent of which was dismissed by a judge.
At the preliminary hearing, Hirsty said his client was essentially "ranting online" by sending out the copy-pasted emails, which the attorney described as "making a cry for help, however horrendous this court may feel it was."
Hirsty argued for a supervised release from custody, saying Lor is a veteran, has no other criminal history and has taken steps to improve himself while in jail. Hirsty also argued that after Lor's release, he did not send any communications or messages regarding the school or his neighbors.
In arguing for increased bail, Deputy District Attorney Savanah Howe said Lor represents a "significant threat to our community" and said he admitted to investigators following his initial arrest that he researched the school's layout and that he "thought about committing a mass shooting approximately every month and he thought through how he would carry out that threat."
Howe said students, parents and teachers have lived in fear since the threats were made and have had to decide between attending their school and preserving their safety.
"These are not decisions that teachers, staff or parents should have to make," the prosecutors said. "If there's one place our school staff, teachers, parents and students should feel safe, it's inside the four walls of their own schools."
