Murrieta resident arrested for criminal threats after threatening to shoot Officers

Nicholas Brandon Diehl/LinkdIn

Murrieta resident arrested for criminal threats after threatening to shoot Officers

Written by Trevor Montgomery
For hemeteyenews.com



Murrieta, Calif.; On Sunday, October 5, 2015, at approximately 1:30 p.m., Officers from the Murrieta Police Department received information of a possible threat towards law enforcement.

The threat had been made by a subject who was arrested several hours earlier by Murrieta Police officers following a domestic disturbance that occurred in the 39000 block of Columbia Union Drive in the City of Murrieta.

After the suspect was released from the Southwest Detention Center following his arrest, he then accessed his Facebook account and posted that he was going to shoot the officers responsible for the arrest.

After the tip was received, detectives from the Murrieta Police Department examined the Facebook posting and determined the threat was credible and rose to the level of a criminal act.

At approximately 6:04 p.m., the suspect was contacted near his Murrieta home and was arrested without incident. The suspect was identified as Nicholas Brandon Diehl, a 26-year-old resident of Murrieta.

Diehl was booked at the Southwest Detention Center for Criminal Threats, a felony.

California Penal Code section 422 defines a criminal threat as:

"Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family’s safety."

In a press release from the Murrieta Police Department, Lieutenant Ron Driscoll wrote, "If you have any information regarding this investigation, please call Detective John Therien at 951-461-6346 or Sergeant Phil Gomez at 951-461-6356. You can also provide information anonymously through “We Tip” at 1-800-78-CRIME. 


Contact the writer: trevor.hemeteyenews@gmail.com