Authorities evacuated an affluent oceanside neighborhood in Southern California over the weekend after finding more than 1,200 guns and two tons of ammunition inside an area home while investigating a man’s death.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded to an emergency call Friday in Pacific Palisades and discovered the remains of an adult male inside a parked car.
The LAPD was able to identify the man and obtain a search warrant for his residence before handing the case over to the department’s Robbery-Homicide Division, KTLA News reported.
Once inside the man’s Palisades Drive home the following day, authorities discovered an arsenal of weapons that prompted the deployment of LAPD explosives experts and the evacuation of surrounding homes for nearly 12 hours, KTLA reported.
“The LAPD Bomb Squad responded to ascertain whether there were hazardous devices or material in the residence or garage,” the department said in a statement.
LAPD Commander Andrew Smith described the number of firearms as “staggering,” and said authorities had to make two separate trips to haul all the weapons and ammo from the house, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“The boxes of ammunition were out behind the garage and they were just lots of them, piled at least 8 feet tall, and the pile just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” a neighbor who did not want to be identified told NBC’s Los Angeles affiliate.
Craig Harvey of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office told a local CBS News affiliate that the man’s body had begun decomposing before being discovered. His identity has not yet been publicly announced, and a cause of death had not been confirmed as of Monday evening, the Times reported.
Commander Smith told the newspaper that investigators will be examining each of the roughly 1,200 weapons discovered inside the home to make sure none of them can be linked to any crimes.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said. “Running the background, history and legality of these weapons is going to require a tremendous amount of time.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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