“Threats of any kind against a school will not be tolerated” stated Sheriff Vern Warnke after the arrest of Carlos Aguilar. The Merced County Sheriff’s Office has arrested 29-year-old Carlos Aguilar from Winton for making criminal threats and resisting arrest. On February 21, 2018 Sergeant Kevin Blake was in communication with social media site administrators who advised him of threats being made from Aguilar.

Essentially Aguilar was threatening a school shooting. Sergeant Kevin Blake and Deputy Herman Prock went to Aguilar’s home where he became combative and starting fighting deputies. Aguilar was placed under arrest and booked into the Merced County jail.

Detective Adam Deniz began investigating the case and questioned Aguilar in regards to videos he had made saying “If I do stupid shit they would need to kill me on the spot and the cops would Swiss cheese me instantly” and “now I know why that white boy Eric Harris from Columbine made the basement tapes because no one would cut him off and no one would take his camera.” During Detective Deniz’s interview with Aguilar, he apologized for what he had said on social media and stated “I was smoking [marijuana] and drinking and may have been very intoxicated when making the video.” Aguilar continued by saying that there were other people in the chat room antagonizing and making fun of him, which made him mad and may have said “stupid shit he didn’t mean.”

The threat was shut down by social media sites before any specific schools were mentioned and Aguilar stated he would not act on anything he said during the threats nor would we shoot up a school. Detective Deniz has investigated the case to the fullest extent and was able to determine Aguilar had no intention of acting on the threats and admitted he “said some things and thinking things he should not have been thinking about”.

The purpose of this post is to inform the public that law enforcement and social media sites are working together and communicating with each other to keep the children and community safe. The Merced County Sheriff’s Office will take action on any tips made about threats of harm to anyone and will prosecute to the full extent of the law. If you have any information about possible threats in our community, please contact the Merced County Sheriff’s Office at 209-385-7445.