PREVIOUSLY

• ALLEGED ASSHOLE IN CUFFS! 31-Year-Old Oklahoma Resident Arrested on Multiple Felony Counts for Making ‘Terrorist Threats’ to Local Schools
• Officers Recount Threatening Phone Calls to Schools During Preliminary Hearing in Trial of Daryl Jones
• We’ll Have to Wait Until October to Finish the Prelim Hearing for Man Charged With Threatening Schools, Businesses
• In Daryl Jones Prelim Hearing, Cops Recount Graphic Threats to Harm and Kill Children at Local Schools
• Daryl Jones’s Middle School Girlfriend Testifies that He Harassed and Repeatedly Threatened to Kill Her in the Years Before His Arrest

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A judge upheld more than 30 of the counts against Daryl Ray Jones today, the man accused of threatening to kill, rape, and mutilate people during dozens of phone calls made to local businesses and schools last year. 

The closing arguments during Jones’ preliminary hearing were held this morning. Defense attorney Meagan O’Connell attempted to convince judge Timothy Canning that Jones shouldn’t be “held to answer” for about two-thirds of the 35 counts of attempting or making criminal threats he’s been charged with. O’Connell argued that many of the phone calls didn’t scare the victim to the level of “sustained fear,” or that elements of the calls didn’t count as threats because they were questions or vague.

O’Connell claimed that because several of the witnesses who testified during previous sessions of the preliminary hearing didn’t explicitly say that the calls scared them, those counts should be tossed out. One victim said she was “concerned;” O’Connell argued that meant she didn’t meet the standard, as she did for someone who said they were “shook up.” Jones allegedly called several schools and threatened to commit mass murder, and they entered a school shooter lockdown. O’Connell suggested the staff and students weren’t afraid, necessarily; they were simply following procedure. 

Counts based on evidence like the caller asking victims questions, like “What would you do if I came over and beat your ass?”, texting one victim their name, their partner’s name, and their home address, and saying to one, “What up, bitch? Look outside, you know who it is,” shouldn’t apply, O’Connell argued, either because they were simple facts, vague, or questions, not direct threats.  

She also contested some of the counts based on Arcata Police Department Lieutenant Keith Altizer’s testimony. O’Connell argued that because he wasn’t the officer who interviewed some of the victims, she couldn’t cross-examine him and should be excluded on procedural grounds. (The officer who did talk to the victims retired before the trial started; Altizer reached out to them to confirm their stories.)

Deputy District Attorney Roger Rees said that those calls met the standard of probable cause, and Judge Canning agreed. He said that violent questions could be “reasonably interpreted” as a threat, as could sending someone their own home address and their name. He also let evidence from Altizer’s testimony stand. Canning decided to throw out a few of the counts for lack of probable cause (police couldn’t tell where several of the phone calls were coming from), but he decided 32 of the counts would stand.

Jones’ arraignment will be held March 24 at 8:30 a.m.