Stand-Off, Illegal Cannabis Cultivation, Ghost Gun: Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office Details Recent Arrests
Originally published by the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office:
1. A guy shooting at his neighbor
2. 99lbs of Marijuana
3. 2000 Marijuana plants
4. Escape hatch inside a house
5. Ghost gun fully automatic AR-15 with a 50 round drum attached.
6. Barricaded Suspect
7. Mutual Aid Special Response Team
All that for just one call yesterday afternoon around 3pm. It all started when a resident in the Bear Valley area of Mariposa County was walking on his property. A Hispanic male adult reportedly shot at the resident with what appeared to be a handgun. The resident immediately called 911 and deputies responded.
Initial reports indicated the suspect retreated to his residence where he was barricaded inside. After hours of clearing the property and attempting to make contact with the suspect, deputies got a search warrant to enter the residence.
Due to the complex situation a mutual aid request was made to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office for a special response team.
At approximately 10pm with the use of drones flown by both Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office and Merced County Sheriff’s Office to watch the surrounding property, units made entry into the house.
No suspect was located however an escape hatch created inside a crawl space was located that led directly to an exit at the back of the residence.
After clearing the residence Mariposa County Detectives and Deputies began a thorough search of the residence where they located 4 guns. One being a ghost gun. These are guns that have no serial numbers. This AR-15 was modified into a fully automatic weapon with selector and auto sear intact and had a 50 round loaded drum attached.
Also found on the property inside a “shop” area was a marijuana growing operation with 2000 plants including a substantial cloning operation. 99 lbs of processed and packaged marijuana was also located.
Almost 8 hours later the scene was cleared, and all personnel left around midnight.
“This residence has been part of previous marijuana eradications done by our office. Unfortunately, the slap on the hand and the lack of ability to truly take down these operations for good, keep criminals like these coming back to our communities. They are getting more sophisticated and arming themselves with heavier weapons as we saw at this house with an escape hatch and a fully automatic weapon with a LOADED 50 round drum. I am happy that no one was injured in this case but we continue to be on the verge. Our California lawmakers have to do better to allow us to truly protect our communities.
Thank you to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office for assisting us, partnerships like this help keep both of our counties safe.” Sheriff Jeremy Briese
