A man who in October threatened to commit a mass shooting at the University of Arizona was sentenced to 16 months in prison, authorities announced Tuesday.
Michael Pengchung Lee, 27, pleaded guilty in April to making interstate threats after he posted in a Snapchat group chat on Oct. 23, 2023, that he sought revenge on "all the chads and stacies" — terms commonly used to refer to men and women by self-described involuntary celibate people, or "incels." The FBI in October described Lee as a “former incel.”
Court documents stated Lee posted the day before: "Theres going to be a mass tragedy and atrocity at the UofA Soon."
Gary Restaino, the U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, said Tuesday that Lee's Snapchat messages in the months prior to the mass shooting threats contained multiple references to a desire to rape female college students.
Restaino said Lee's sentence is at the "top end" of the range recommended by the Federal Sentencing Commission for this type of crime.
Lee was also ordered to undergo drug testing and a mental health assessment and was given a "no contact order" during his three-year supervised release, after he is released from custody. Additionally, he will be prohibited from emailing or writing to the university and banned from entering campus.
"We hope that this is a way both to ensure rehabilitation of Mr. Lee and to continue to protect the students on the University of Arizona campus," Restaino said.
Restaino said Lee has prior criminal charges, including a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct following a dispute with an escort in 2020, and a drug trafficking offense in September.
The investigation into the mass shooting threats Lee made on social media was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the University of Arizona Police Department, as part of the FBI’s Southern Arizona Violent Crime and Gang Task Force.
University police chief: Arrest due to changes made after professor was shot in 2022
Chris Olson, University of Arizona’s police chief, said Lee's arrest was the result of changes made to the university's threat response after Thomas Meixner, a professor at the university, was gunned down in October 2022 by a former student. In June, Murad Dervish received a life sentence without parole for first-degree murder.
"One of the results of the Murad Dervish trial and the murder of Professor Meixner was the creation of the office of Public Safety, and part of that is a threat assessment management team led by clinical psychologist (Jessie) Semmann," Olson said.
In the year following the shooting, the university created an Office of Public Safety and made changes to its threat assessment and management team. The team is a multidisciplinary group of university employees and contractors who work to assess the threat of violence.
The threat assessment team was created after a shooting at the university in 2002 when a former student shot three faculty members from the University of Arizona College of Nursing and himself.
Authorities encourage the public to report threats of violence
Olson said Lee's case was made possible because a member of the public reported Lee's threats to law enforcement. Olson encouraged the public to continue contacting law enforcement with any type of threat, including threats made by electronic communications like text messaging, emails or social media.
"We encourage anyone who comes across such behavior to report it to law enforcement immediately. I'm thankful for the community member who came forward in this case," Olson said.
What to watch for:How to spot students who may be trending toward violence
Tips from the public can include anything from a threat to life, missing persons to internet crime, said Jason Alexander, acting assistant special agent in charge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"We would rather run down a lead that ends in nothing than this one that ends in the loss of life," he said.
Restaino said authorities are seeing more and more threats directed against women, highlighting two recent cases.
One case involved Caleb Alfred Tifft, 29, of Tucson, who was arrested in May and accused of stalking and threatening a student at the University of Arizona. Another case involved New Mexico resident James Thomas Andrew McCarty, who was sentenced in Phoenix to seven years imprisonment for hoax calls threatening violence with guns and bombs. Evidence shows he also targeted a female high school student, Restaino said.
Restaino said that while incarceration and "holistic conditions of supervision post incarceration" can help deter gender-based violence, he reiterated the need for better role models.
"Let's help people get their heads out of those rabbit holes that cause them to say these things that are, in fact, crimes," he said.
He also thanked Tucson Municipal Judge Wendy Million for her work in prohibiting abusers in domestic violence cases from possessing firearms.
"We appreciate the partnership with Judge Million and her use of Department of Justice grant funding to further this important end," he said.
Reach the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com.
The Republic’s coverage of southern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. Support Arizona news coverage with a tax-deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.
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