North Bay senators say Thursday’s threat at California state Capitol draws attention to gun control failures

After arriving at a Sacramento office building used by state lawmakers Thursday morning, Sen. Bill Dodd received a text message from his North Bay colleague, Senate Majority Leader Mike McGuire, telling him and his staff to stay put and not report to the historic Capitol building for a 9 a.m. session on the Senate floor.

Along with Senate President Toni Atkins and other legislative leaders, McGuire made the call to keep senators in their office space — a temporary home for lawmakers and staff workplaces amid ongoing renovations to the Capitol annex building.

They made the choice following law enforcement reports that a man who had already carried out shootings in two cities had threatened violence at the state’s Capitol.

“The security is just intense,” Dodd, D-Napa, told The Press Democrat of the sudden law enforcement presence at the Capitol. “California Highway Patrol officers and Senate Assembly Sergeants are everywhere.”

While lawmakers normally walk from their temporary office space to the Capitol to convene sessions in its historic chambers, the senate on Thursday quickly set up a makeshift session at the office building.

“These acts of violence have become too commonplace across the nation and right here at home in the state,” McGuire, D-Healdsburg, told The Press Democrat. “We take these threats incredibly seriously.”

Law enforcement agencies are searching the Sacramento region for the man who made the threat, who is from Hayward, according to reporting by the Sacramento Bee. Law enforcement officials said Jackson Pinney, 30, is suspected of firing shots, though not injuring anyone, Wednesday night in Roseville and Citrus Heights.

A man authorities suspect was Pinney fired shots from a moving pickup truck in Citrus Heights, and 10 minutes later, fired on Kaiser Roseville Medical Center, according to the Bee’s report.

The incident drew further attention to national failures on gun control, both senators said.

“It’s ridiculous we can’t come to some common ground on what are we going to do on guns,” Dodd said. “There’s no new takeaway (from the day’s events). These are the takeaways we got after Tennessee, after Texas, after all of these mass shootings.”

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88