LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Las Vegas Metro police arrested a man for threatening a mass shooting at a synagogue, documents said.
Michael Sanchez, 37, faces a charge of making threats or conveying false information concerning acts of terrorism, records said. Sanchez identified himself to police as an Army veteran who served two deployments in Iraq.
On Sunday, Jan. 29, a rabbi at the Chabad of Southern Nevada, a synagogue near Charleston Boulevard and Arville Street, contacted the FBI to report the threats he received, documents said.
The threats came from a caller who said he was “going to come shoot the synagogue,” police said. The rabbi was able to provide the phone number to authorities, which returned to Sanchez, documents said.
“[The rabbi] started that Michael accused him, and the people that attend his [synagogue] of being child molesters and killers,” officers wrote in an arrest report. “[The rabbi] stated that Michael stated something in between the lines that they do not deserve to live.”
Sanchez also reportedly mentioned a shooting at a Chabad in California in 2019 that left one person dead and several injured, police said.
Officers went to Sanchez’s apartment, which police said was near Charleston Boulevard and Eastern Avenue.
“Upon seeing officers, Sanchez immediately advised them that he knew they were there because the ‘Jews’ had sent him,” officers said.
Investigators later learned Sanchez allegedly made several threatening phone calls over several days, documents said. They said Sanchez told them he had no weapons.
Judge Rebecca Saxe set Sanchez’s bail at $20,000. Sanchez remained jailed at the Clark County Detention Center as of Tuesday.
Reported antisemitic incidents reached an all-time peak in 2021 with 2,717 in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League.