Auto Stolen From Deputy on SWAT Team

Authorities were searching Friday for a car belonging to a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Weapons and Tactics Team after the car was stolen outside a Woodland Hills restaurant while loaded with firearms, including a machine gun.

The 34-year-old deputy, who was not identified, had parked his red 1986 IROC Camaro next to the Red Onion Restaurant on Canoga Boulevard, where he was eating Thursday evening, Deputy Dave Logan said.

Locked inside the vehicle were a 9-millimeter machine gun, a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38-caliber revolver, a .357-Magnum revolver and ammunition, Logan said.

Also in the car were two sets of sheriff’s uniforms, and two olive-green SWAT uniforms, Logan said.

The deputy, a four-year veteran of the department, had been at a training assignment in the Newhall-Saugus area, and was authorized to have the weapons in his car, Logan said. The deputy was planning to return the weapons to the SWAT bureau at the East Los Angeles sheriff’s substation, he said.

“Normally, weapons are not allowed to be kept in a personal vehicle,” Logan said.

The car, which had paper license plates from a dealer, was gone when the deputy came out of the restaurant at 11 p.m.