Man Charged With Threatening Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee Struggled With Mental Health

A man who was charged with sending racist and threatening emails to Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee has struggled with mental health issues in the past, according to court records and his father.

David Brooks Pokorny was arrested Oct. 7 in Southern California on suspicion of sending numerous emails with “extremely racist tones and threats to kill multiple different government officials,” including the mayor, according to a statement of probable cause.

Pokorny, 45, pleaded not guilty Oct. 10 to one felony count of threatening public officials or judges with a hate crime enhancement. An Alameda County judge set Pokorny’s bail at $70,000. As of Thursday, he remained in custody at the Santa Rita Jail.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Pokorny’s father, Gary Pokorny, said his son hasn’t lived in the Bay Area for years and does not have a permanent address that he is aware of.

He said he knew his son had been arrested but didn’t know why, and had been trying to reach him.

Gary Pokorny, a former city manager for El Cerrito and Walnut Creek, said he had no idea why his son would make threats against Lee but expressed sadness at his arrest.

“He has had some mental health issues in the past,” Gary Pokorny said. “That’s all I’ll say.”

Public records show Pokorny’s parents asked for a court’s protection several times in 2014 and 2015 after they said their son had been violent or threatened them and was taken to a mental health facility.

In May 2014, the Pokornys alleged, the father and son were involved in a physical altercation that left Gary Pokorny “severely bruised” and ended with David Pokorny getting into an ambulance to go to a crisis stabilization unit.

Shortly after, in July, David threatened his mother after she did not immediately move a TV set for him, according to a statement included in a May 2015 request for a restraining order filed by Gary Pokorny.

According to the statement, David Pokorny threatened and physically assaulted his mother. He allegedly told police responding to a 911 call that day that he had considered suicide many times.

“He talked at length about conspiracies to control thought, i.e., ‘My mind has been hijacked by the Russians.’ He wanted Gary to get a tape recorder to record him talking about all these things,” the document reads.

David Pokorny was restrained and hospitalized after the incident, according to his parents’ statement.

The following year, his parents filed another request for a restraining order.

“We are deeply worried and anxious about David’s health. He must get help, or his [and our] future is bleak,” they wrote in a detailed description of an incident in which they returned from a trip to Europe and were unable to reach David, who was house-sitting.

David Pokorny eventually called his mother, telling his parents “to go back to Europe and die” and that he was tired of being pushed around for 35 years. He later arrived at his parents’ home and tried to spit on his father, they alleged, telling him to “kneel down in front of me and lick the bottom of my shoe.”

Pokorny’s parents wrote that they later discovered their son had sent them emails containing statements like, “Do not try to call me, visit me, or text me. I have fucking had it with you two,” and “You are a brutal, sick, twisted individual, and I do not like you.”

In the May 2015 statement, his parents wrote that they told a police officer they had previously been granted temporary restraining orders but had not served them because they thought they could work things out and get David into treatment.

“We are asking for a temporary restraining order today and will serve it to make it permanent this time as his condition and his threatening behavior is worsening with time,” they wrote.

That month, a court barred David Pokorny from coming within 100 yards of his parents, their home or his father’s workplace. It expired in 2020.

Gary Pokorny declined to comment on the restraining order in a phone call with KQED, saying that it was “in the past.”

Pokorny said his son previously worked in coding and was once an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. He said he couldn’t recall the last time he had spoken to his son.

On Wednesday, David Pokorny appeared in a downtown Oakland courtroom alongside his public defender, wearing a red Alameda County Jail shirt and glasses. His greying beard appeared unkempt.

If convicted, Pokorny could face up to six years in state prison.

Police records describe threatening emails to Lee reminiscent of the violent language Pokorny’s parents said he used with them.

Investigators first became aware of the recent threats against Lee and other government officials after a staff member in the mayor’s office discovered a large number of explicit threats from an unfamiliar Google account in the mayor’s inbox.

The first email, sent on Sept. 7, according to a declaration of probable cause for warrantless arrest filed in Alameda County, was rife with racist slurs, saying that Black people in Oakland “and the people that want to keep them alive are enemy combatants, and I have a legal right to kill them.”

“I think we should kill all of the government officials in Oakland and all of the police officers and judges in Oakland as well,” the email continued.

Another email, sent to Lee on Sept. 21, read: “You are a psychopath, and I’m going to torture and murder you,” according to the declaration.

A city staffer provided police with screenshots and a USB with a large number of other emails, including some with references to slavery and people in cages.

In a statement following Pokorny’s arrest, Lee said: “Violence has no place in our city or our democracy. Intimidation and hate will not silence Oakland public servants or the communities we represent. We will continue to do the people’s work — regardless of circumstances.”

Pokorny is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 23.