Articles Tagged with firearms

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In an email exchange that turned sour, a former student of Soka University allegedly sent an instructor links to a menacing vlog he had recorded. In the video the man spoke of his desire to execute a mass shooting. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department announced that he was apprehended on Monday.

David Kenneth Smith attended Soka University, a private college in Aliso Viejo, nearly a decade ago. In 2008 he was accused of smoking marijuana and he was handed down disciplinary actions for his alleged infraction.

The instructor on the receiving end of the email exchange with Smith was involved in assigning the consequences for the marijuana use. Orange County Sherriff’s Department deputies reported that when the accused became discontented with the correspondence he sent a link to a YouTube video containing footage of himself laying in a bathtub while holding a semiautomatic pistol against his chest as he spoke about the university. In the video Smith discussed the way university staff was regularly unkind to him, and he claims during his enrollment there he was wrongfully fined for and accused of violations he did not commit.

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In nearly twenty years of practice as an Orange County criminal defense attorney, I have seen the following too many times to recall:

He has been served with a temporary restraining order and wants to fight it. The says there’s no reason for it. They simply had a breakup and he said some mean things. There was no violence, no harassment and no threats. Imposition of the restraining order can have consequences- he could lose his job and his ex-wife could use the restraining order against him if she ever decides to take him back to court to get more child support. Shortly before the restraining order hearing he calls and says his ex-girlfriend wants to “drop” the restraining order. I ask how he knows this and he says “she called me”.

He should never have taken that call. Unless there is some specifically carved out exception such as “the parties may have electronic communication solely for the purposes of discussing continuing financial obligations,” a restraining order prohibits contact for ALL  purposes.

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