Sheriff’s Office: Apparent mental health crisis leads to discovery of “massive” cache of weapons, ammunition
A Sacramento County man was arrested after a bizarre phone call to 9-1-1 led to the discovery of an enormous cache of weapons and ammunition in his home, the Sheriff’s Office said.
In the early morning hours of Thursday, February 25, dispatch received a call from a man on the 1400 block of Mission Avenue who said he was holding multiple people at gunpoint because they’d been eating his food instead of repairing a supposed gas leak. Dispatch then heard a single gunshot, and the caller said he’d shot someone.
Deputies immediately responded to the residence and managed to talk the caller, later identified as 38-year-old Bradley Imre Bodai, out of the house and detain him without further incident.
Deputies then entered the home to search for the alleged victim and found nobody. They did, however, find evidence that a single shot had been fired. Deputies soon determined there hadn’t been anyone else at the house, and that Bodai was in the midst of an apparent mental health crisis.
In light of this development, deputies obtained a Gun Violence Restraining Order that same morning. They then searched the residence and reportedly uncovered a “massive cache” of weapons, ammunition, and other supplies such as weapons hardware and ballistic safety equipment.
Deputies also found a gun safe containing what appeared to be three sticks of dynamite wired to a charge timer, prompting an immediate evacuation order for a half-mile radius. The Sheriff’s Office Explosive Ordinance Detail and Special Investigative Intelligence Detail were then called to the scene, along with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, state DOJ personnel, and Alcohol-Tobacco-Firearms personnel. As it turned out, however, the dynamite was merely a realistic imitation.
By the end of it all, authorities had seized over 30,000 AK-47 rounds, 5,000 AR-15 rounds, and tens of thousands of semi-automatic handgun rounds. Also seized were twenty-one semiautomatic handguns, four revolvers, eighteen rifles, three shotguns, and three Polish-made grenade launchers. Authorities say they also located armor-piercing rounds, firearm silencers, equipment for manufacturing silencers, and ballistic safety equipment, and that some of the firearms had been modified in such a manner that makes them assault weapons under California law.
Although Bodai was initially booked on a single misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm in a grossly negligent manner, he now faces nineteen felony charges of possession of an assault weapon and is being held on $250,000 bail. He is housed at the Sacramento County Main Jail.
