Lawmaker seeks new way to outlaw threats against California schools and places of worship

An Inland Empire legislator wants to make it easier to penalize people who make threats affecting schools or places of worship.

The proposal by state Sen. Susan Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, has stirred up broad opposition as well as support from dozens of organizations. It pits police, prosecutors and school employee groups against youth and disability advocates and the ACLU.

Existing law already says it is a crime to make a threat about something that could result in death or great bodily injury to someone. If the threat is “unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific” and causes “sustained fear” in a person, the crime is a misdemeanor or a felony.

Rubio, a former public school teacher at Baldwin Park and Monrovia school districts, said she championed this bill to highlight the location of the threat, rather than the victim of the threat. She said that phoned-in or texted threats often waste time and money for schools and first responders and traumatize people.

“I’ve seen the toll these threats take on students and communities,” she said in a statement. “Even when the danger isn’t real, the fear is, and the trauma stays with kids long after the lockdown ends.”

But there’s disagreement about whether a new law is needed. Opponents point out that this bill is similar to existing law.

Rubio said existing law has too many loopholes, but this bill would give authorities more options.

“California law shouldn’t allow someone to threaten a mass shooting at a school and walk away without consequences, simply because no individual person was named in the threat,” she said.

Groups representing children pointed out that young people often make threats they don’t mean and don’t consider the legal consequences. A new law, they fear, will make schools even more of a conduit to incarceration for some students.

“It allows police intervention for what’s perceived as a threat, even if it’s just a joke, a mental breakdown, or expressing yourself through art,” said Kevin Maturano, a policy fellow with Fresh Lines for Youth. 

“And like every punitive policy, it will target Black and Brown students the most. But beyond the harm for youth, this bill will also waste millions of taxpayer dollars.”

Rubio said her proposed bill specifies that perpetrators who are under 18 would be charged with misdemeanors, not felonies, “to strike a balance between accountability and keeping young people on a path toward growth, not incarceration.”

The bill passed the Public Safety Committee 6-0 in March. On April 7 it was placed on the Appropriations Committee’s suspense file, where most bills that cost extra money go. Legislators are expected to consider it next month.

This is at least the eighth time such a measure has come before the Assembly since 2015. Two similar bills passed in 2015 but were vetoed, and others failed in committee, including during last year’s legislative session. 

This time 32 entities registered support for it, including associations representing police officers, sheriff’s deputies, school resource officers and prosecutors, as well as the League of California Cities, the Hindu America Foundation, Rio Hindo College and San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention. 

Against it were 16 organizations, including ACLU California Action, the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, the California Public Defenders Association, the Children’s Defense Fund California, and Disability Rights California.