A former Latitude High School student is being held without bail in Alameda County after prosecutors say he made a video threatening a school official at the Fruitvale charter campus, complete with what appeared to be an assault-style rifle and high-capacity magazines. Mercury Hayes, 18, was arrested Wednesday in Oakland and is scheduled to appear in court Friday.
Hayes faces a felony charge tied to threats investigators say began surfacing on August 9, just one day before Oakland Unified School District students headed back for the first day of the fall semester, according to KRON4. Santa Rita Jail inmate records confirm Hayes's arrest on Wednesday, and he remains in custody without bail. His court appearance is set for Friday at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.
According to the outlet's report, OUSD officials alerted the Oakland Police Department after learning of the threats, setting off a rapid investigation that led to Hayes's arrest just days after the semester began. The Alameda County District Attorney's Office wrote that the investigation uncovered messages containing direct threats against a school official, and prosecutors allege Hayes created a video showing what appeared to be an assault-style rifle equipped with high-capacity magazines.
Threats Allegedly Targeted a School Official and Possibly Students
Hayes is accused of directing the threatening video at a school official, with prosecutors suggesting the threats may have also extended to Latitude High School students. Latitude High is a public charter school located at 1045 Derby Avenue in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood, and Hayes is a former student there.
The school is operated by Education for Change Public Schools, a charter management organization that has run schools in lower Fruitvale since 2005 and now oversees six public charter schools serving more than 3,000 students across Oakland's Fruitvale and Elmhurst neighborhoods, according to a statement from Education for Change Public Schools. Latitude High itself was founded in August 2018 after being selected as a national XQ Super School, built around a project-based learning model that sends students to visit ten workplace sites annually across the Bay Area, per the school's own account on its website.
The campus occupies a 30,000-square-foot facility that underwent a multi-year property acquisition and environmental remediation process, approved by the Oakland Planning Commission in August 2021, to convert a former Caltrans industrial site into school use, according to SF YIMBY. The site previously housed another charter middle school before seismic and environmental retrofits were completed. The Oaklandside has described the surrounding East 12th Street and Derby Avenue corridor as home to tall security fencing and planter barriers along a busy transit route shared by several other area schools.
Adult Charges Carry Prison Exposure and Strike Consequences
Because Hayes is 18, his case is being prosecuted in Alameda County Superior Court under adult jurisdiction rather than through the juvenile system, since California law requires adult court prosecution for offenses committed at 18 or older, per CalMatters. That distinction exposes him to standard state prison terms and a permanent criminal record rather than the protections available to juvenile defendants.
Under California Penal Code Section 422, a felony criminal threat conviction carries a potential sentence of 16 months, two years, or three years in state prison, with an additional year added if a dangerous weapon is involved, according to the Shouse Law Group. Such a conviction also counts as a strike under California's Three Strikes law. A newer statute, Penal Code Section 422.3, took effect January 1, 2026, expanding prosecutors' options by allowing felony or misdemeanor charges for credible threats of serious violence against schools and public institutions even when no individual target is named, per the Helfend Law Group.
A Pattern of Urgent Response to Local School Threats
Alameda County has treated weapons-related school threats as urgent public safety matters before. In August 2022, prosecutors resolved a case involving a 16-year-old Berkeley High School student who possessed assault rifle components and explosive materials; that student pleaded guilty to felony solicitation and criminal threats and was ordered into a residential rehabilitation facility, according to Berkeleyside.
Oakland-area campuses have also faced disruptions tied to nearby law enforcement activity rather than direct threats. Last November, federal law enforcement activity near Oakland's Hoover Elementary School prompted nearby campuses to enter secure protocol lockdowns, a moment Hoodline previously reported underscored how closely Oakland police and school administrators coordinate on emergency campus notifications.
It remains unknown whether physical weapons were recovered during Hayes's arrest Wednesday, and the specific nature of his relationship with the targeted school official has not been disclosed. It is also unclear what additional security or support measures Latitude High School is putting in place for students now that the fall semester is underway.
