Monrovia resident Gerardo Cortez allegedly made threats about schools in Arcadia, Monrovia and Duarte as well as to a medical center in West Covina and the Santa Anita mail.
A Monrovia man suspected of making threatening phone calls to a series of Southland schools, a hospital and a police station was charged today with nearly a dozen felonies.
Gerardo Cortez, 26, was scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in West Covina on six counts of making criminal threats and five counts of falsely reporting an emergency.
Prosecutors contend Cortez was convicted in June for making a phony bomb threat. The Pasadena Star-News reports those schools were in Pasadena with the threat taking place in October 2012.
Cortez allegedly made a series of threats Sept. 9-12, with the most recent targeting Arcadia High School, which received an anonymous call saying someone had a gun on the campus.
On Sept. 10, Northview Intermediate School and adjacent Duarte High School, which are on the same campus, were placed on lockdown, according to deputies at the sheriff's Temple Station.
On Sept. 9, the Covina Police Department received a call around 1 p.m. from an anonymous male who said he was at "Citrus Medical Center" and had an AK-47 "and was going to start shooting people." Police determined he was potentially referring to a medical center in West Covina and took precautions there.
A similar telephone call shut down a middle school in Monrovia about the same time.
Cortez was arrested about 4 p.m. Tuesday at his home.
The Arcadia, Covina and Monrovia police departments, the FBI and Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators from Temple Station, Major Crimes Bureau and the Joint Terrorism Task Force took part in the investigation that led to the arrest, according to the District Attorney's Office.
By City News Service
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