Newport Beach, Trabuco Canyon Inquiries : U.S. Officials Join Probe of Firearms Incidents

Federal officials Monday joined local police in investigating two Orange County firearms incidents, one in which a Newport Beach residence was riddled with automatic weapon fire and one in which a man admitted firing a similar weapon in Trabuco Canyon.

No one was injured in either case, authorities reported. But a sheriff’s spokesman said Monday that it is not known whether the weapon fired in Trabuco Canyon is an illegal automatic or a legal semiautomatic. The automatic version is capable of firing up to 1,145 rounds per minute.

Two of four juveniles arrested Saturday in Newport Beach remain in custody and two have been released to their parents, police said. The 16- and 17-year-old youths still in custody face the Juvenile Court equivalent to felony arraignments later this week. Arraignment for the other boys has not been set. All four names were withheld because the youths are minors.

Newport Beach police arrested the youths, 16-year-old twin brothers from that city and two unrelated 17-year-olds from Tus tin, for firing 11 shots Friday night into the front door of a residence in the 200 block of 30th Street, where they had been ejected from a party, police said. Investigators confiscated a 9-millimeter Ingram automat ic weapon with a silencer and a wire fold-out stock.

In the Trabuco Canyon incident, however, Douglas Gerald Dussauls, 24, of Huntington Beach was released on his own recognizance from Orange County Jail pending arraignment Feb. 28 in the South County Municipal Court on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, Lt. Dick Olson, a sheriff’s spokesman, said.

When Dussauls, who could not be reached for comment, was arrested Sunday, he told a sheriff’s deputy that his gun is a “deer rifle” and a legal, semiautomatic version of the 9-millimeter Ingram, Olson said.

Dussauls was arrested when deputies found the weapon in a gun case on the floorboard of his pickup truck, Olson said. Dussauls admitted firing the gun in Trabuco Canyon but said he was unaware that shooting was prohibited in that area, Olson added.

Sheriff’s investigators are not certain whether the gun is automatic or semiautomatic and will make it available for inspection by U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents, Olson said.

The Ingram submachine gun is capable of firing 1,090 to 1,145 rounds per minute when configured as an automatic, according to Jane’s Infantry Weapons, an authoritative book on weaponry.

Semiautomatic versions of the gun can be legally purchased but also can be altered to fire automatically by making illegal, internal modifications, Olson said. “You can’t tell (if the weapon has been modified) until you shoot it,” he said. Sheriff investigators have not fired the weapon, he said.

Doug Gray, resident agent in charge of the ATF’s Santa Ana office, confirmed that the Newport Beach and Trabuco Canyon incidents are under investigation by his agency. The penalty for possession or illegal transfer of automatic weapons is up to 10 years in federal prison and a $10,000 fine, Gray said. Illegal modification of semiautomatic weapons carries the same penalty.

The illegal possession and use of automatic weapons have increased in recent years, according to Curtis Cooper, an ATF official. “If you’ve got the money, you can buy them.”

ATF agents have confiscated hundreds of illegal automatic weapons in Southern California and Arizona in the past year, Cooper said. However, a Sheriff Department’s spokesman said there has been no noticeable increase in the use of automatic weapons in local crimes.

Newport Beach police said Monday that they are continuing their investigation into the incident because “there is a possibility” that the youths may be linked to other crimes.

Three of the juveniles have prior records and one was on probation for a burglary offense, Newport Beach Police Sgt. Paul Henisey said.