Tehama County,Calif., prosecutors were never told that the gunman who killed five people in a rampage this week had for months before regularly fired off weapons at his home despite a judge's order that he turn in his weapons, the district attorney said Friday.
Neighbors of the gunman, Kevin Janson Neal, 44, said they complained to police for months about him firing guns and threatening them, with one resident even filing papers in court.
Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen said Friday that had prosecutors known about the complaints, his office could have filed a motion to increase Neal's $160,000 bond or filed misdemeanor charges for violating the court order that barred him from having weapons.
"I wasn't aware of the fact that he was continuing to shoot," Cohen said. "We would need some kind of report, some kind of proof that it was happening. Just someone saying he didn't turn in all his guns."
Cohen did not assign blame for the communication breakdown but said the first he heard of the neighbors' complaints was Wednesday, a day after Neal's rampage.
"That is the first time," he said. "I don't want to throw the sheriff's office under the bus."
Tehama County sheriff's officials have said they investigated the reports of gunfire but could never find Neal or catch him in the act, despite at least twice placing his trailer under surveillance.
The revelations come amid questions in the small town of Rancho Tehama about whether more could have been done about Neal's behavior in the months before the killings.
On Tuesday, Neal took a semi-automatic rifle he'd manufactured in his garage and two pistols that were registered to someone else and killed three of his neighbors and a woman on the street in a cross-town rampage that ended with deputies shooting him to death in a gun battle.
Neal had killed his wife the night before and hid her body under the floor. After killing his neighbors on Tuesday, he drove to a nearby elementary school where one of his neighbor's children attended and shot into several buildings.
Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said Wednesday that his department tried to deal with Neal's gunfire.
"I am aware of incidents where neighbors reported shots coming from that residence. Every time we responded, we would try to make contact with Mr. Neal," Johnston said. "Like I said, he was not law enforcement friendly. He would not come to the door."
"Actually, his house was arranged in a matter where we couldn't detect him being there," Johnston continued. "And on at least two occasions, officers put the house under surveillance hoping he would come back out. That didn't happen."
Neal's penchant for firing off guns and threatening neighbors was well-known in this rural corner of Northern California.
In February and again in March, a local court had ordered him to turn in all of his weapons as part of a temporary restraining order granted to residents in this rural area of Northern California who claimed Neal was harassing them. Court records show that neighbors continued to complain about gunfire and other problems with Neal for much of the year. Another judge issued the same weapons order in October.
Some experts said they believe more could have been done to enforce those orders.
"I'm always a little hesitant to second-guess law enforcement, but if they received credible reports that Neal was shooting on his property ... then that seems as though they would have had probable case mandating an arrest," said Kelly Behre, director of the Family Protection and Legal Assistance Clinic at the University of California, Davis, in an email.
