The dozens of harassing calls to Yosemite National Park’s 911 system in the summer of 2024 were certainly not calls for help, at least not in the typical sense.
The man on the other end of the line was abusive, disruptive and at one point the caller told the dispatcher he wanted to “shoot a cop and go to prison.”
Last week a federal judge sentenced Michael Anthony Valencia to the two years he had already spent in jail since his arrest on July 22, 2024.
Valencia, 32, from Appleton, Wis., had plead guilty in March to a felony of assaulting a law enforcement officer and two misdemeanors of illegal camping and interfering with a 911 operator.
In 2024, after two months of harassing calls to Yosemite’s Emergency Communications Center (ECC), dispatchers were able to triangulate Valencia’s location to an area near the Pohono Trail, south of Tunnel View off Highway
41.
That area, along the southern rim of Yosemite Valley, is heavily forested.
Two park rangers found Valencia’s campsite and approached him as he was defecating in the woods.
“If I had a gun, I would shoot you right now,” Valencia told the approaching rangers.
As one of the rangers was attempting to handcuff him, Valencia punched the officer, splitting his lip.
Valencia was tasered by the other ranger and taken into custody.
Valencia has a prior record for obstructing law enforcement.
His mother told investigators her son was “trying to escape society.”
In sentencing Valencia to two years time served, U.S. District Judge Kirk E. Sherriff acknowledged that most of that time was spent restoring Valencia to a point where he was considered mentally competent to face legal proceedings.
Valencia will be on supervised probation for the next three years.
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