Crimes: threats.

Assembly Member Patel's legislation expands California's criminal code to address threats targeting specific locations, including daycares, schools, universities, workplaces, houses of worship, and medical facilities. The measure creates a new offense for threats made through any medium, including social media and internet posts, that convey an immediate prospect of death or great bodily injury.

Under the proposed law, threats must meet specific criteria to constitute a criminal offense: they must be unequivocal and immediate, create reasonable and sustained fear for safety, and be made with the intent that recipients perceive them as genuine threats - even without plans for actual execution. The offense would be punishable by up to one year in county jail as a misdemeanor, or 16 months to three years as a felony. While prosecutors could pursue charges under other applicable statutes, defendants cannot be convicted under both this new provision and existing threat laws for the same act.

The measure establishes these location-specific threat provisions as distinct from current law, which criminalizes threats against individuals and their immediate families but does not explicitly address threats targeting particular venues. Local agencies and school districts would implement the new requirements without state reimbursement, as the measure creates a new crime rather than mandating new programs or services.