Photo: Sanchez’s ghost gun
February 5, 2022 – Santa Barbara County, Ca.
There may be a well-publicized demand by those of a “progressive” political persuasion to “defund the police,” but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to be easier to drive around among an alert citizenry while in violation of any number of California Criminal Codes.
A case in point took place on the afternoon of January 25 th , when, according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Raquel Zick, “a citizen’s report of suspicious subjects” sitting in a car in the vicinity of a Santa Ynez hardware store brought deputies to the scene to check things out. As the deputies cruised down Edison Street—one of the busier thoroughfares in an otherwise tranquil community—the pulled behind a vehicle in which “three subjects” were seated.
Contact with 22-year-old Santa Ynez resident Marcus Sanchez, 19-year-old Santa Maria resident Arthur Pichardo, and a male juvenile was then made. Once Sanchez was determined to be a felon on parole, deputies then conducted a “probation search” of the car. It didn’t take long for the deputies to reach inside the car’s glove compartment and discover “a loaded, un-serialized ‘ghost gun’” along with assorted narcotics paraphernalia.
The three male subjects were then taken into custody and transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where Sanchez was booked on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, possession of a loaded firearm, carrying a loaded firearm in a public place, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and possession of drug paraphernalia, with his bail set at $35,000.
For his part, Pichardo was booked on the same charges but was “released without bail pursuant to the local court’s extension of California Emergency Rule 4.”
Photo: courtesy Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department
