On July 14, 2024, 27 year old Trey Von Duus, a man who was at the time on felony probation entered Sequoia High School’s campus posing as a law enforcement officer. According to a campus aide, Duus claimed to have a firearm and was allegedly in possession of a knife when he attempted to kidnap a student.
Though officers didn’t find a firearm, they reported a difficult struggle to detain the suspect.
“He was carrying an umbrella in the open position with it pointed in the direction of the officers who were commanding him to stop,” said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. He explained that officers deployed a 40-millimeter “less-lethal” launcher, which fires heavy beanbag rounds. When a shot to the thigh failed to stop Duus, officers used a Taser to finally subdue and handcuff him.
During court proceedings, Duus didn’t explicitly state his intentions but he offered an explanation to officers for why he approached the minor. According to Wagstaffe, Duus claimed he saw the student wearing a My Hero Academia t-shirt and simply wanted to tell the student, “Hey, that’s a cute shirt.” Duus maintained that the interaction happened outside and that he never entered a classroom.
However, investigators revealed this was not Duus’ only encounter with minors that day. Earlier on July 14, Brisbane Police responded to reports of Duus loitering and getting close to children at a local restaurant. While he did not touch the children in that instance, he was served with a no-trespassing order.
Additionally at the time of the crime, Duus was on felony probation from an incident in Santa Barbara County in which he broke into a fire department official’s home, scavenged through belongings and put on the resident’s clothes, according to prosecutors.
On March 13, 2026, Duus was sentenced to two years and six months in state prison for attempted kidnapping at Sequoia and other charges. However, Duus did not serve a single day of that sentence in prison following the ruling.
This is because under California law, defendants receive credit for time spent in jail awaiting trial. Since Duus remained in custody for 604 days before his sentencing, he had accumulated enough time served to satisfy his two-and-a-half-year term.
The nearly two year delay in the case was largely due to legal maneuvering, as Duus’ court-appointed attorney, Charles Smith, repeatedly requested competency evaluations to determine if Duus was competent to stand trial.
Both Charles Smith and Judge Jeffery B. Jackson, who presided over the case, were contacted for an interview but declined to comment.