Washington County man sentenced for threatening to shoot up Sherwood elementary school
Editor’s note: This story contains details that may be disturbing.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Washington County man was formally sentenced in U.S. District Court to seven months of already-served jail time on Nov. 16 for threatening to shoot up a local elementary school in May of 2022.
Local authorities arrested 27-year-old Braeden Richard Riess on May 16, 2022, for sending threatening emails to a federal office in Langley, Virginia between May 5 and May 15. In the emails, Riess threatened to kill Middleton Elementary School students and himself because he believed that “time travelers” were hacking his video games, FBI Special Agent Francisco Rivera stated in an affidavit.
“Due to the terroristic, cruel, and extremely unusual hacking done to me, I will be walking into [Middleton Elementary School], shooting dead every person I see, and then continuing until I’m dead,” an email from Riess reads, according to Rivera’s affidavit.
“The students at [Middleton Elementary School] will die brutal, painful, bloody cruel deaths, this is not a joke,” another email reads.
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Some of these emails were sent from varying spoof email accounts like “thisisnotajoke@imbeingserious.com,” but were signed using Riess’ name. During his arrest, Riess allegedly admitted to sending the emails and owning a gun. However, he told authorities that he didn’t actually intend to commit the crimes, Rivera said in a sworn statement.
At the time the threats were made, Riess appeared to be suffering from “serious mental health issues,” prosecutors stated in court documents. Following his arrest, he was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and was admitted to the Oregon State Hospital for approximately 30 days of rehabilitation.
Riess was released from federal pretrial supervision on Dec. 22, 2022, and was transferred to the Northwest Residential Reentry Center in Portland after serving seven months and five days in the Washington County Jail. On March 21, a doctor determined that Riess was no longer displaying symptoms of delusions and his mental condition appeared to be under control, court documents filed by the prosecution state.
At his Nov. 16 hearing, U.S. Chief District Court Judge Marco A. Hernández sentenced Riess to time served for “interstate communication of a threat” — a federal felony. The judge also gave Riess three years of federal probation and ordered him to participate in a mental health treatment program.
Prior to the federal ruling, local prosecutors attempted to charge Riess with six misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and one felony count of criminal mischief. However, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton said that the charges were dismissed due to a lack of local laws that address threats of mass violence.
“Because Oregon law does not provide sufficient means to address threats of mass violence, this office reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to refer the case for federal prosecution,” Barton’s office stated in a press release. “Oregon law does not provide an adequate means to address threats of mass violence to public places such as schools or places of worship.”
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Barton said that he is actively working with local lawmakers to create new legislation in 2024 that would address the type of threats that Riess made against Washington County’s elementary school students.
“I am grateful for the assistance in this case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to keep our Washington County community safe,” Barton was quoted as saying in a press release. “Now we must ensure that lawmakers act without delay to fix the gap in Oregon law so that we can send a clear message that threats of mass harm to locations such as schools and places of worship will not be tolerated.”
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