2019 Pride Threats and Bank Robbery Case Comes to Court

A man awaiting sentencing for bank robbery is also facing felony charges of making death threats to San Diego Pride in 2019.

Deputy District Attorney Leonard Trinh said a preliminary hearing against Andre LaFayette Holmes, 32, will be held in the fall concerning the death threats.

“I’m going to shoot up the Pride event,” said the caller four times on July 10, 2019, according to a phone transcript of what he said.

“I’m going to have to kill the faggots and children,” the caller told a Pride employee. “I don’t like them. I hate the faggots.”

Holmes is alleged to have hung up and then called a second Pride employee with the same threats. He was quoted as denouncing Trump and saying he hated Hillary Clinton.

Pride officials called the San Diego Police Department, which identified Holmes as the owner of a mobile phone from which the calls were made.

Holmes was arrested the next day during a traffic stop while driving his 2009 Toyota minivan near Miramar College. His cell phone was recovered from the vehicle.

Holmes has been charged with making a criminal threat to another person and making death threats to two people at the San Diego Pride office. He has pleaded not guilty.

Pride employees will likely be called to testify.

Police found a semi-automatic pistol with 30 rounds in his home along with a rubber “old man” mask, and a large bag of cash. Evidence at his home linked him to three bank robberies, according to court records.

Trinh said the death threat case will follow the Aug. 17 sentencing in U.S. District Court for the three bank robberies for which he has pleaded guilty.

Holmes remains in the Metropolitan Correctional Center without bail.

“Because of COVID-19, we don’t believe shuffling him back and forth between state and federal court is the best,” said Trinh on June 25.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mario Peia has filed sentencing documents that ask for a 15-year federal prison term for the bank robberies.

His federal attorney is seeking a sentence ranging from 33-41 months in prison. She wrote he had an abusive childhood and was raised in an unstable home.

Holmes was also threatening to tellers at banks he robbed. His first hold-up note said, “We have guns! I will personally shoot anyone you alert!”

“Don’t make me jump over the counter and kill innocent people. Big bills only and I’ll calmly leave. Money now!!!!” the note stated.

He pulled a semi-automatic pistol and pointed it at tellers in his second and third robbery, according to courts. He stole a total of $7,355 in the three robberies.

Holmes wrote a rambling letter to U.S. District Court Judge Larry Burns and mentioned that he enjoyed playing tennis at Point Loma Nazarene University and other colleges. Burns is a graduate of PLNU.

Holmes pleaded guilty to robbing the U.S. Bank on Campo Road in Spring Valley in 2016; the Mission Federal Credit Union in Hillcrest in 2018; and California Bank & Trust in Hillcrest in 2019.