Sacramento man faces felony charges for threatening to kill elected official
SACRAMENTO -- A Sacramento man is facing charges for threatening the life of a Sacramento government official and was not eligible for bail on Tuesday.
Alexander Hoch, 37, is facing a felony charge for threatening the life of a government official and a felony charge for threatening to commit a crime resulting in death or great bodily injury.
Hoch was taken into custody after an hours-long standoff on Saturday night in Sacramento on the 3000 block of C Street. Officers with the Sacramento Police Department attempted to serve Hoch a warrant but say he refused to come out of the residence and comply with orders to surrender.
SWAT deployed a chemical agent into the residence and Hoch surrendered peacefully, according to a Sacramento police statement.
Tuesday, in his first court appearance, he was assigned to a public defender and informed he violated his parole in addition to the felony charges. An attorney representing the City of Sacramento was present, representing at least one "recipient" of Hoch's alleged threats.
Witnesses told CBS13 the alleged threats were targeted at Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela. Her office did not confirm she was on the other end of Hoch's alleged threats on Tuesday.
Two weeks before Hoch's arrest, Valenzuela spoke to CBS13 Reporter Madisen Keavy about the growing number of threats and harassments towards women in politics.
During their conversation, Valenzuela said she has had to ask for a law enforcement presence "at least twice" for herself, her staff, or her colleagues at events where there were potential safety concerns.
"There are strict rules when we can remove social media comments, or not respond to emails, we hit that threshold quite often, which is really unfortunate," said Valenzuela on November 2nd, before Hoch was arrested.
Valenzuela said she has a support system of other women in politics, friends, and family that she said keeps her safe. She said there are "very real" conversations with law enforcement on a daily or weekly basis involving concerns, but also for monitoring her official social media accounts if there are comments or messages that involve potential threats or harassments.
The Anti-Defamation League and Princeton University's Bridging Divides Initiative launched a new data collection initiative in October that records and tracks threats to local elected officials. In it, the report found that women officials were targeted at a higher frequency, adjusted for the proportion of women in local offices, 3.4 times more than men.