Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...WALNUT CREEK — The then-17-year-old boy was armed with two things: his BB gun and a list of local registered sex offenders, available through a public statewide database that tracks them, according to authorities.
The teen proceeded to travel around town, accosting and threatening people convicted of sex crimes, and occasionally shooting at them with the BB gun. On March 15, he was arrested on suspicion of brandishing a weapon and assault with a firearm, according to police and court records.
Then came a strange twist: just two months after his arrest, they raided his Walnut Creek home in a new investigation involving alleged marijuana sales to high school students. That case started last April, when girl who attends Los Lomas High School accidentally ingested a significant cannabis dose when another student gave her a sandwich but failed to inform her it was laced with the drug, authorities said.
The girl was hospitalized but later cleared. Police and school officials investigated and identified the same teen — who turned 18 this week — as her suspected drug dealer. Authorities say they recovered Instagram messages where he offered marijuana and mushrooms to several other teenagers and discussed bulk discounts.
Last month, police raided the teen’s home on Creekside Drive, seizing $1,300 in cash and a box containing packages of edible cannabis products, which were similar to what the girl allegedly ingested, authorities said.
The alleged conduct in both incidents happened when the teen was underage, and juvenile privacy laws protect the teen’s confidentiality. It is unclear whether he faces criminal charges in either investigation.
The alleged targeting of sex offenders is reminiscent of a more serious incident last year, in Fremont, where a 29-year-old man allegedly posed as an accountant, went to the home of a convicted child molester, and killed him, later allegedly bragging to police how good it felt to stab the victim. The suspect, Varun Suresh, was charged with murder but his case has been put on hold while his mental competency is evaluated, records show.
In both cases, the sex offenders were targeted through Megan’s Law, a site that tracks people convicted of various sexual offenses and publicly lists their photographs and addresses. It was created after the murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka in New Jersey by a twice-convicted who’d quietly been released from prison and moved into the girl’s neighborhood without her family’s knowledge.