Felon charged for shooting threat at Riverside college

A convicted felon who’s accused of threatening to carry out a shooting spree at a community college — and was found armed with a semiautomatic rifle — was charged today with making terrorist threats and other felonies.

Jacob Ryan McBain, 27, of Norco was arrested Monday following an investigation by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and the Riverside Community College District Police Department.

In addition to two counts of making terrorist threats, McBain is charged with two counts of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, three counts of being a felon in possession of ammunition and one count of possession of an assault weapon.

He’s being held in lieu of $500,000 bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside and is slated to make his initial court appearance this afternoon at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

According to sheriff’s officials, deputies were alerted on Monday morning to threats posted to Facebook indicating that McBain allegedly intended to perpetrate a shooting on an RCCD campus — the exact one wasn’t specified by investigators — in the near future.

“The threats were deemed credible, and the Norco Special Enforcement Team, along with detectives assigned to the sheriff’s Jurupa Valley station, initiated a detailed and expansive investigation,” according to a sheriff’s statement.

Additional evidence was collected to justify a search warrant, which was served Monday night at the defendant’s residence in the 5000 block of Trail Street. Investigators said a loaded AR-15 rifle was seized at the location, along with two semiautomatic handguns and a case of ammunition.

McBain was taken into custody without a struggle.

Court records show that he has prior convictions in another jurisdiction, but the offenses were not listed.