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Weapons evidence collected during arrest | Ventura County Sheriff’s Office
Even those among the Gen Z demographic who may not be academically inclined in the traditional sense generally have computer skills and digital chops far beyond those of prior generations. Sadly, those skills can be put to malign use that lead to criminal conduct.
That appears to have been case of 21-year-old Oxnard resident Daniel Melgoza, who, according to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Brian Whittaker, was arrested on the morning of October 18th by VCSD detectives on suspicion of “illegal manufacturing and unlawful transfer of firearms.”
Melgoza became the subject of a search warrant issued pursuant to a month-long investigation in his activities that indicated he was making “ghost guns” with parts generated by computerized 3-D printers which he would then assemble without traceable serial numbers. Multiple law enforcement entities became involved in the investigation, including personnel attached to the VCSD Gun Violence Reduction Program, Special Crimes Unit, The Oxnard Police Department’s Directed Enforcement Unit and Violent Crimes Unit, and the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office Bureau of Investigations.
With that much focus on his activities, Melgoza was greeted by a phalanx of uniformed police power on his doorstep which led to the discovery of “four un-serialized privately manufactured handguns, firearm parts, and other indications that firearms were being manufactured” in the home. The cops also found an unregistered handgun and a rifle determined to have been acquired through “unlawful firearms transfers.’
Melgoza was taken into custody and transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on charges of unlawful firearms transfers and manufacture of a handgun without a serial number, with his bail set at $10,000.
