Restraining order issued against man who made death threat against Moco Supervisors
UPDATE: 10/24/18 9:56 a.m.: As Monterey County government workers arrived on the job Monday, two supervisors got a startling and violent message.
“I think you’re a (expletive) traitor and should be put up against the wall and shot as a traitor,” said the man who left the voicemail, targeting Supervisors Luis Alejo and Simon Salinas.
KION was able to obtain that voicemail.
The caller took aim at at their proposal to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in local elections as soon as 2020.
“They don’t own any property, they have no skin in the game, and it’s all Mexicans you want voting to take over our state,” said the caller.
Investigators say they found the man who left that voicemail. It did not take long to find him because Alejo said the caller actually left his name and number as part of the message.
“You know, there’s a lot of issues that come before the board of supervisors. So this isn’t something that we haven’t dealt with before,” said Alejo. “But certainly this particular message was pretty strong I think for anyone who hears it. It’s unacceptable.”
“Certainly, my staff was rattled when they hear that type of language and that type of aggressive attacks on us,” said Salinas.
Both supervisors closed their offices on Monday as a precaution and reported the message to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators questioned the caller, but did not make an arrest or hand out a citation.
A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office says threats have to be credible and more than just words for an arrest to happen.
Alejo says he has dealt with controversial issues before, especially involving immigration.
“But a proposal to extend voting to our children, US citizen children, that one kind of surprised me that someone would take to the extreme of leaving this kind of message,” said Alejo.
“I’ve been at this for 30 years, and I’ll be leaving so my concern is that that becomes like the norm to be able to attack people physically and verbally and threaten physical violence,” said Salinas.
Monterey County would be the first in the nation to allow voting rights to 16-year-olds. Both the supervisors say their proposal would get young people interested in politics and their community.
The sheriff’s office has not released the identity of the caller to us. The spokesperson says they will wrap up the investigation, after which they will submit the case to the district attorney’s office for review.
On Wednesday, Oct. 24, Alejo said no charges were filed against the person making the death threats. Supervisor Alejo has asked that the case be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1055137262055223296″,”author_name”:”Luis Alejo”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;We are now pursuing a workplace violence restraining order to protect our staff & other county employees! We have to pursue this for ourselves now in civil court with the help of our County Counsel! &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoHateCrimes?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#NoHateCrimes&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Justice?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#Justice&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Luis Alejo (@SupervisorAlejo) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1055137262055223296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;October 24, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Monterey County Sheriff Steve Bernal responded to Alejo sharing the threatening videos on social media by saying, ” I’d appriciate it if you would let me do my job before you make a quote.”
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1055185196687839234″,”author_name”:”Luis Alejo”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;After not getting a call from the Sheriff or anyone in his Dept yesterday after reporting the hate crime & death threats, I got this mssg from the Sheriff yesterday AM lecturing me about a statement I didn’t make & I didn’t release the audio to any media. I simply it posted here! &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/EvRIREhh4c”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/EvRIREhh4c&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Luis Alejo (@SupervisorAlejo) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1055185196687839234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;October 24, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
The sheriff’s office decided not to pursue the investigation. Now a civil investigation order has been issued by the superior court judge against the man who left the threatening messages, where he suggests Alejo and Salinas be placed against a wall and shot.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1055207124328828929″,”author_name”:”Luis Alejo”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Monterey County Superior Court just issued a Workplace Violence Restraining Order against the person who made death threats & a hate crime against Supervisor &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/Simon_Salinas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@Simon_Salinas&#lt;/a&#gt; & me! Since the Sheriffs Dept did not act, we needed to seek protection for our staff & employees!! &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/Mt9LMkUFJ3″&#gt;pic.twitter.com/Mt9LMkUFJ3&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Luis Alejo (@SupervisorAlejo) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1055207124328828929?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;October 24, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
PREVIOUS STORY:
A voice message threatening the lives of two Monterey County Supervisors is being investigated by the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.
Supervisor Luis Alejo posted a portion of the hateful message on Twitter Monday morning saying, “Supervisor @Simon_Salinas & I started our Monday morning by hearing a voice message of death threats & hate speech! We closed our offices today in precaution & have alerted the Sheriff’s Department!!”
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1054442764828581890″,”author_name”:”Luis Alejo”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Supervisor &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/Simon_Salinas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@Simon_Salinas&#lt;/a&#gt; & I started our Monday morning by hearing a voice message of death threats & hate speech! We closed our offices today in precaution & have alerted the Sheriff’s Department!! &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/TLyNKeAHhR”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/TLyNKeAHhR&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Luis Alejo (@SupervisorAlejo) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/SupervisorAlejo/status/1054442764828581890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;October 22, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Alejo went on to say, “This is America! Listen to the death threats & hate speech by one Monterey County resident against Supervisor @Simon_Salinas and me!
The caller’s name was removed from the recording as it’s under criminal investigation.
KION’s Josh Kristianto will have more tonight.
