UPS employee charged with shooting threats via messages
Authorities recovered big cache of guns, ammo from Sunnyvale home
Prosecutors have filed more than two dozen felony charges against a Sunnyvale man accused of threatening to shoot up the UPS facility where he worked, leading to his arrest and the discovery of a cache of guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition at his home.
New court documents also allege that as suspect Thomas Joseph Andrews led Sunnyvale police and the California Highway Patrol on a high-speed chase on Highway 101 on Sunday night, he livestreamed himself on Facebook.
Andrews reportedly stated, “So this is how it ends” at one point; he was combative but unarmed when arrested a short time later.
Andrews, 31, was charged Wednesday with 18 felony counts of criminal threats, five felony counts of possessing an assault weapon, one felony count of possessing materials with the intent to make a destructive device or explosive, and a felony count of reckless driving, according to court records.
His arraignment, initially set for Wednesday afternoon, was postponed because he refused to be escorted to the courthouse, officials said. Andrews is being held in the Santa Clara County Main Jail in lieu of $2 million bail, which was raised from $500,000.
“It’s scary, the potential damage he could have done with that firepower and ammunition,” Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Capt. Dan Pistor said. “This is a great example of what happens when the community engages the police department when they know something’s not right. The story could have been completely different. We really avoided a tragedy.”
Andrews’ employer declined to answer questions from this news organization about the defendant’s job history and any increased security measures at the facility in the wake of the threats.
“We are cooperating with law enforcement as they conduct their investigation,” said Matthew O’Connor, senior manager of public relations for UPS.
The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety said it was alerted around 8 p.m. Sunday that the UPS facility in the city had received threatening text messages from Andrews that suggested he was planning a shooting there. The alleged threats were made in a group text thread that included Andrews and several other UPS employees, including managers, police said.
In a probable-cause statement accompanying the charges,
Sunnyvale Detective Barron Renzi wrote that Andrews voiced anger about “a management decision about compensation” and that the messages he sent initially “sounded like venting” but that they “escalated in tone and anger.”
Renzi wrote that in one message, Andrews posted “himself sitting in front of the Sunnyvale UPS facility playing the song ‘Murder on My Mind,’ ” and then sent another message stating, “I am capable of incredibly horrific acts.”
In other messages on the thread, he reportedly posted images of a UPS shield with a black line through it — akin to when police officers place black tape over their badges to honor an officer killed in the line of duty. Other texts referenced a past shooting at another Bay Area UPS facility and a video clip of a movie scene showing a boardroom of executives being killed.
Andrews also appeared to target a specific coworker by posting the coworker’s photo and home address in the group text, Renzi wrote. Two days before the alleged threats, Andrews reportedly referenced the co-worker during a conference call in which he sounded agitated, according to police.
“This terrified the named co-worker,” Renzi wrote, “because it demonstrated Andrews knew where he lived and singled him out.”
Several UPS employees contacted the company to report Andrews’ texts, and security officials reached out to authorities, police said.
Investigators, working off the texts and records showing that four handguns and a rifle were registered in his name, searched for Andrews that night. They also obtained a gun-violence restraining order, a relatively new legal avenue used to proactively seize guns from people who have exhibited threatening behavior.
“This is the type of case a gun-violence restraining order is made for. These were direct threats made by someone known to have access to firearms,” Deputy District Attorney Mike Vidmar said.
Police tracked Andrews’ phone and officers spotted him around 11:15 p.m. near Fair Oaks and East Maude avenues. They tried to conduct a traffic stop, but Andrews did not yield.
They followed Andrews onto southbound Highway 101, and the CHP joined the chase as it continued on the freeway, police said. Andrews eventually was arrested near the Bailey Road exit south of San Jose.
Police said officers initially thought Andrews might be under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they arrested him because of his combative and defiant behavior.
After the arrest, police served a search warrant at Andrews’ apartment in Sunnyvale and found an array of firearms more expansive than what registration records showed he had. Police say they recovered five “tactical-style” rifles, three handguns, a shotgun, body armor and a multitude of high-capacity magazines. They also reported finding over 20,000 rounds of handgun and rifle ammunition, a portion of which was stored in backpacks ready to be carried out.
“Notably, there were tactical backpacks by the front door that were full of ammunition seemingly staged and ready to be picked up on the way out the door,” Renzi wrote.
According to police, the explosive material recovered at the apartment was Tannerite, a commercially available product typically used to create exploding targets and marketed for rifle shooting practice.
“The evidence certainly shows the defendant was capable of carrying out the threats he made,” Vidmar said. “These community members saw something and they said something. And thankfully we don’t have to answer what could have happened because Sunnyvale (police) acted with such urgency.”