On Sunday, March 1, at about 8 p.m., the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety (DPS) received a report of a United Parcel Service (UPS) employee sending threatening text messages to his employer. The employee was identified as Thomas Andrews, a 32-year-old Sunnyvale resident. The text messages indicated Andrews was planning a mass shooting at the UPS facility in Sunnyvale.
Sunnyvale DPS patrol officers immediately began an investigation and discovered Andrews was the registered owner of four handguns and a rifle. Officers began an extensive search for him. At approximately 11:15 p.m., Sunnyvale DPS patrol officers spotted Andrews in the area of Fair Oaks Avenue and Maude Avenue. Officers attempted an enforcement stop, but Andrews led them in a vehicle pursuit onto southbound Highway 101. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) joined the pursuit and the suspect was safely taken into custody at Highway 101, near Bailey Road.
Sunnyvale DPS detectives obtained a search warrant for Andrew’s residence in Sunnyvale. Officers located over 20,000 rounds of handgun and rifle ammunition, numerous high capacity magazines, 5 tactical style rifles, 1 shotgun, 3 handguns and body armor. Several tactical backpacks containing ammunition were staged at the front door of the apartment where the suspect resides.
Sunnyvale DPS thanked the California Highway Patrol for their assistance on this case.
Thomas Andrews was booked into the Santa Clara County Jail for 422 PC – Criminal Threats, 2800.2(a) VC – Evading Police, 23152(a) VC – Driving Under the Influence, and several counts of weapons violations.
This investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to contact Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Detective Barron Renzi at (408) 730-7712 or brenzi@sunnyvale.ca.gov.
View Comments (12)
He has got that military soldier bugged out look ! Probably got high and ran his mouth then someone called 911 then got chased which led the police to his home. He probably has weapons all over his home prepared for anything and now he will get exploited in the news and courts.
Why do so many of these "gun nuts" look like the missing link?
A thug, a terrorist, radicalized in ‘mmerica by tRump and his Maggats.
Drew Gonzo...4 more years. Start crying...
Glad They got him! They did it by the book! Thanks You Officers!
Thanks for saying something positive. You are right, this could have turned out much differently. I am also glad it resolved the way it did.
Thank God that I will never set foot in Commufornia. Lets see if I understand this. I make a dump comment, text (whatever) which causes someone undue stress, albeit I was drunk, high, stupid, a braggart, liar, trying to stroke my underinflated ego... put whatever ignorant thing you can think of here... and the police pull me over for some unknown and unwritten law, then violate the constitution by searching my home and find ammunition and differing weapons, backpacks and other survivalist type things? I'm sorry, but I thought the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments would take care of something so trivial.
Devil's advocate - what if the police just stopped by his home and asked him a few questions to ascertain if he was mentally fit, or in some state of confusion? Even at that, why sensationalize the fact that a non-felon had any arms in the 1st place? Could there be an agenda here that I'm missing? Nah... couldn't be. Please breathe it in deeply. Something doesn't smell right, or we're not being told the whole story/truth? It has become so bad that I can't tell the difference anymore.
I wonder how many pictures of this guy they had to go through until they found one where he looks the part? Could be one, might have been many.
I was told many years ago to not believe most things I read and/or see. Try and find out for myself. Honestly... I haven't a clue on this one.
Reading is fundamental. " United Parcel Service (UPS) employee sending threatening text messages to his employer. The employee was identified as Thomas Andrews, a 32-year-old Sunnyvale resident. The text messages indicated Andrews was planning a mass shooting at the UPS facility in Sunnyvale."
While I'd agree, California is not for everyone--or perhaps probably should be for anyone (sorry NOT sorry) considering that Santa Clara County is home to more Superfund sites than any other county in the entire nation, and nationally is only beat out by New Jersey (after living there for 2 years I can confirm: quite the suboptimal living conditions)--it's surprising there aren't more issues like this occurring due to the high prevalence of developmental disabilities and behavioral issues that can easily be brought on by endocrine disruptions from such types of contamination. Add in the constant housing insecurity amongst the working class, and the recent disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 to the area, plus the the high rates of job insecurity and I'd say that this was a natural consequence of the environment that was allowed to develop and we have an increased responsibility of treating people with dignity, respect and the presumption of innocence.
HOWEVER, law enforcement has always had backdoors to every single policy surrounding individual rights. Anytime law enforcement determines that there is reasonable suspicion of imminent danger they can enact procedural law known as 'exigent circumstances' and go ahead and let themselves in without a warrant. This criminal law procedure allows our right to privacy in our own residences to immediately evaporate after the right set of buzzwords. Which is especially problematic since there is not a set protocol for threat management determination when it comes to exigent circumstances.
Though, I would very much disagree with the perpetuated myth that this state is actually liberal or socialist leaning at all. This entire state is up for grabs for whoever can put on the best and most expensive show, the rest is just a smokescreen and that in itself perpetuates an even bigger lie. Much of our national-- federal and state-- social and judicial infrastructure precedence is heavily swayed by the enormous socio-political power of the state of California. With a GDP of $3.137 TRILLION, the state of California is the largest US economic force, and alone the state is the 5th largest economy in the world.
While I do think sending threats to your boss definitely warrants a welfare status check in by someone (maybe a social worker would be more helpful than a police officer in this situation??), and maybe this guy could have had someone with mental health or a good friend or a family member reach out with the support of trained professionals and help figure out what's actually going on and help the man process what's going on that been upsetting him and maybe had him reflect on why he has a special interest in accumulating that much firepower for one person. Instead, the actions taken were alarmist, reactionary and completely unnecessary. Don't forget California also loves to manufacture vapid social outrage and entertainment in an all in one package! Anytime we try to pretend we are so like, so 'hella' progressive and go out and scapegoat and stigmatize individuals to demonize as serve as icons of evil misdeeds instead of addressing the root of the problem, we are that much closer to ending up in a Phillip K Dick nightmare.
Person who threatened mass shooting is a friend of a friend. Hope he gets some counseling help.
Agreed. Too bad they didn't lead with that angle. Sure has the potential to save a lot of money, time, panic, and distress.
Are we also going to acknowledge that this is a known problem that's had a lot of recent uptick in activity directly linked to operations designed and intended to radicalize young adult vulnerable men that's funded by foreign dark money campaigns to undermine and destabilize our population? The FBI certainly has. Or are we going to act ignorantly and conduct witch hunts while enabling people to make career moves off of having opinions about the damage done to our communities without any critical inquiry?