A 39-year-old man is facing federal supervised-release violations after prosecutors say he threatened to come back and kill the principal of Cleo Gordon Elementary School in Fairfield following a heated dispute over his child. Desean Bailey was released by a federal judge while the case moves forward, despite prosecutors' efforts to keep him jailed.
According to the East Bay Times, the confrontation between Bailey and the principal happened on the school campus in late August, after prosecutors allege Bailey grew angry that his child had been sent home with a family member he considered mentally unfit to care for children. Court records cited by the outlet say Bailey acknowledged he was angry during the argument, but that he told authorities in an interview he was worried about his child's safety and did not mean any harm.
Federal prosecutors in Sacramento filed supervised release violations against Bailey tied to the alleged threat, the report notes, and argued he should remain in custody while the case is pending. Prosecutors told the court they believed Bailey was a danger to the community, pointing to his criminal history, which the same report says includes a prior assault conviction and two prior stints in federal prison for illegal gun possession.
A Record Stretching Back Nearly Two Decades
Court records referenced in the East Bay Times report detail two earlier gun cases involving Bailey in San Francisco. In 2009, he allegedly dropped a gun while fleeing officers who had spotted him urinating in public. In 2017, he allegedly possessed a gun while illegally gambling and fled from police, who then tackled him.
That 2017 case led to a sentence of four years and nine months in prison, according to the report. Before he was sentenced, Bailey reportedly wrote a letter to Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, saying he had been stressed by bad luck and a loved one's cancer diagnosis while trying to build a rap career and hold down a 9-to-5 job. Federal court records tied to that earlier case, reviewed via the GovInfo judgment archive, identify Breyer as the sentencing judge in a 2018 case in which Bailey pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, a charge detailed on a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
Why Threats Against Schools Are Hard to Prosecute
Despite the alleged severity of Bailey's threat, cases like his sit within a broader legal gray area in California. Under state law, an actionable criminal threat must identify the specific individual who is going to be harmed, according to CalMatters. That requirement has let other alleged threats slip through the cracks elsewhere in the state: a San Diego man's charges were dismissed in October 2024 after a judge found he hadn't named a specific individual in his threats, and a man in El Dorado County could not be prosecuted for threatening every firefighter at a department because he didn't single out one firefighter by name, CalMatters reported.
Assemblymember Darshana Patel has pushed legislation aimed at closing that loophole, per the same CalMatters report. The issue has also drawn legislative attention.
Prosecutors Sought Bailey's Detention
Prosecutors sought to keep Bailey in custody while the case was pending, but a judge released him.
