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Image of weapons evidence collected | Ventura County Sheriff’s Office
If there are any doubts about the proliferation of firearms in the hands of the wrong folks, the evidence leading to the arrests of 43-year-old Oxnard resident Martin Torres and 35-year-old Fillmore resident Ignacio Ixta, Jr. should allay those misgivings.
Throughout December 2023 and January of this year, detectives attached to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department West County Special Enforcement Unit—well aware of the criminal history of Torres as a convicted felon—were keeping an eye on his activities. According to VCSD spokesman Sgt. Beau Rodriguiez, suspicions that Torres, prohibited by law from “owning or possessing firearms and ammunition, was violating that proscription on a fairly regular basis.
On January 30th , those suspicions led to the issuance of a signed search warrant for Torres, his residence, and any vehicles with which he might come into contact. Less than 24 hours later, just before noon on January 31 st , Torres was cruising along an Oxnard thoroughfare as a passenger in a car driven by Ixta. Whether detectives spotted a motor vehicle violation is unclear; what is clear is that the traffic stop the cops conducted that day led to the discovery of “a concealed and loaded semi-automatic handgun and narcotics” inside the car.
That’s all it took for the cops to take both men into custody and to conduct a follow-up search of Torres’ residence, where several “additional firearms, various types of narcotics, and a large amount of U.S. currency” were discovered.
