Local man discovers threats to kill are taken seriously after Vegas massacre
Caution: Graphic images and language. Not ours, but sometimes the people we cover are somewhat uncouth, to say the least. We apologize in advance for some of our neighbors.
We prefer to bring you positive, insightful stories about our local hi-desert communities and the truly inspirational people who live here, but after the horrific Las Vegas massacre this past Sunday night, it was predictable that sociopaths would begin their pathetic attempts to garner attention through copycat activities. The hi-desert proved to not be immune to the problem, and a local elementary school wound up on lock-down this morning, as police dealt with one threat made by a local man on social media.
The incident began when Morongo Valley resident Robin Lee "Robbie" Rennaker posted the above photo and comments on his Facebook page last night. This resulted in multiple calls to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, beginning at 10:27 p.m. on Tuesday, October 3. Rennaker's post states he just bought the gun in the photo and after he tests it at the shooting range, "then ima carry out an attack where I will kill many innocent civilians for the islamic state of iraq... bismillah.... allahu akbar."
Officers from the Morongo Basin Station of the sheriff's department responded to Rennaker's residence on the 49700 block of Pioneer Drive in Morongo Valley and attempted contact several times, according to their report, but had no luck in reaching him that evening.
The next morning, Morongo Valley Elementary School went on lock-down as a precaution. It was evidently portrayed as a drill by school administration, according to a comment we have heard from a teacher at the school. The school was in lock-down for approximately 1.5 hours.
Detectives for the sheriff's department had, in the meantime, obtained a search warrant for Rennaker's home in Morongo. He was contacted at his residence, and during the search, detectives located a sawed-off shotgun, ammunition, methamphetamines, and drug paraphenalia. Detectives appropriated Rennaker's electronic devices for further investigation.
It's not clear from Rennaker's social media postings whether he is serious about ties to ISIS, or he's being facetious in attempts at humor, but this is the page photo for his Facebook page:
and this is his profile photo:
Rennaker has made other posts on his Facebook page, where he has 668 friends, that raise questions about his intent, including the following:
Following the search of Rennaker's residence, he was arrested for PC 422, Criminal Threats; PC 165900(t), Possession of a sawed-off shotgun; and, PC 1203, Violation of Probation, and was booked at the Morongo Basin jail. He is currently being held without bail.
Rennaker's Twitter account, active since August, 2013, where he has 2,142 followers has a mix of news retweets and pornography, including tweets about Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter, whom Rennaker described as "a man of many men that one can only dream of becoming." He noted in a post about Paddock's girlfriend, Marilou Danley,"her boyfriend did the las vegas shooting for me... i sure hope he nutted n her pussy before murdering all those people."
On Twitter, Rennaker commented this past Tuesday, "Every single terrorist attack that has occurred in the united states over this last year has been all because of me & not 1 person knows it." He explained, "I mainly follow bitches that i would fuck, people that i think are cool, ISIS terrorists, my followers that speak arabic or out of boredom."
Perhaps Rennaker sums up his true condition in his response to an NBC News story he retweeted, where President Trump commented about the Las Vegas shooter, "He was a sick man, a demented man. We are dealing with a very sick individual." Rennaker posted, "Idk (I don't know) if trump talking about me or da nigga dat massacred those people in las vegas."
Detectives have asked that anyone with information about this case should call the Morongo Basin Detective Division at 760-366-4 and reer to Case No. DR #091701383.
We would like to thank the sheriff's department for taking this threat seriously, and thank all our local concerned citizens who brought the threat to the attention of law enforcement, as well as the teachers and staff at Morongo Valley Elementary School who took the precaution to keep our community's children safe.
In other related news, we would very much like to thank our friends in Las Vegas for their admirable reaction to the horrific massacre there this week. Thank you to folks like Sandra Scheller, and John and Kim Ulmanis for helping in the aftermath of this tragic event. We greatly appreciate your dedication to making our world a better place for all of us. Thank you.