SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 14, 2023 — Residents and staff of the Palmer Court Apartments complex finally got some time off from having to worry about a fellow their alleged nemesis, and his knives.
Leonard Lucero, 60, is charged in four different incidents with aggravated assault for allegedly threatening his fellow tenants at knife point. After his latest arrest on April 7, according to 3rd District Court records, he was finally ordered held without bail.
That was after a probable cause affidavit in the arrest by Salt Lake City police stated “He may eventually kill a person, possibly a child, if he is released.”
In that incident, he threatened three children with a knife, according to charging documents. He first brandished a pocket knife at a 7-year-old girl, causing her to flee to her apartment. “(Lucero) then went down the hall and displayed the knife to a 12 year old and a 10 year old,” causing them to flee, according to a probable cause affidavit, which notes that incident caught on security video.
Arraignment is pending, yet to be scheduled, in that case, as it is in a March 20 altercation in the community area at Palmer Court. In that case, Lucero is accused of causing a disturbance by waving around a larger folding knife while yelling at the other tenants, an incident also caught on video.
Residents have had “multiple incidents” in the past few weeks involving threats from Lucero with a knife and a machete, according to charging documents filed by SLCPD in the Mar. 20 case.
“Residents of the Palmer Court Apartments are fearful of retaliation,” court documents say.
Lucero is also charged with aggravated assault in a Feb. 27 incident at Palmer Court, accused of threatening to kill another tenant with a pocket knife. He is seen on video, according to charging documents, chasing the man while brandishing the knife. Arraignment is set for April 27 for that case.
Lucero is scheduled for an April 17 review hearing, also in 3rd District Court, on mental health evaluations which have been pending for almost a year since they were ordered in May 2022. That’s after another aggravated assault case alleged at Palmer Court.
The evaluations to determine Lucero’s competence to stand trial followed an incident on October 25, 2020, when Lucero is accused of threatening to kill two women who worked at the front desk of the apartment complex.
He brandished a pocket knife while also yelling racial slurs with the death threats, according to a probable cause affidavit, which said he fled when the women dialed 911. Arraignment was delayed until April of last year, according to court records.
Following four cases of assaults on police officers in 2000 and 2001, Lucero spent 12 years in the state mental hospital, court records show.
His assaults on police began with an attempted murder charge filed after an altercation with an officer on Sept. 11, 2000, then three cases of assault by a prisoner alleged Dec. 13, 2000, two counts; Dec. 27, 2000; and Jan. 21, 2001, one count each, all in the Salt Lake County Jail, court documents say.
Exact details of those incidents were not available, files having been destroyed, according to the court indexes, after all four cases were dismissed when Lucero was found mentally ill and committed to the Utah State Hospital in Provo.
On April 3, 2012, the USH wrote a letter to the Utah Attorney General’s Office, informing authorities they planned to “reintegrate” Lucero into the community, barring any objections from prosecutors.
Lucero was charged in 2015 and 2017 with aggravated assaults on staff in an assisted living center in West Jordan where he resided.
He grappled with staff in those incidents, according to charging documents, breaking a half-full coffee pot on the back of one, drawing blood. And throwing a chair and “melon-sized” rocks at another while chasing him. Both cases were dismissed after Lucero was found incompetent to stand trial, further disposition of the cases unclear in the court record.
