A San Francisco Bay Area man posted anti-Semitic threats in an online chatroom and threatened to commit a mass shooting at a synagogue, police said.
Ross Farca, 23, of Concord, is charged with making criminal threats, possession of an illegal assault rifle and manufacturing an assault rifle, Concord police said in a statement posted to Facebook on Friday.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, according to The East Bay Times. Bail was set at $125,000.
Authorities found an illegal AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, Nazi literature, camouflage clothes, a sword and high-capacity magazines in his home last Monday, the statement said. Police said records showed that Farca legally purchased an incomplete AR-15 rifle frame earlier this year, which was later used to construct a complete weapon.
The FBI found Farca’s comments online, which included threats to shoot law enforcement and claims that he had an assault rifle, Concord police said. Farca did not specify any locations.
The East Bay Times reported Farca used Steam, a popular video game platform, where his screen name “Adolf Hitler (((6 Million)))” was an apparent reference to the number of Jewish people killed during the Holocaust.
Farca reportedly wrote about being inspired by the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, calling the shooter there a “hero,” and the Poway synagogue shooting in San Diego, according to The East Bay Times.
“I would probably get a body count of like 30 (Jews) and then like five police officers because I would also decide to fight to the death,” court records say Farca wrote in one post.
Court records show that Farca was placed in a mental health hold in 2011 after fighting with police who had responded to a family dispute at his home. A worker at the Regional Center of East Bay, a facility that helps people with developmental disabilities, told authorities in 2015 she believed Farcia fit the profile of a school shooter.
It was not immediately clear if Farca had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
