Man Held After Automatic Guns, Explosives Found

Police arrested a man and seized automatic machine guns, explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition during a search of an Oxnard residence, authorities said Saturday.

Armed with a search warrant obtained after a domestic dispute investigation in early March, Oxnard police officers and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms searched the cottage in the 1200 block of South Oxnard Boulevard about 5:45 p.m. Friday, said Oxnard Police Det. Terry Burr.

Officials found two fully automatic machine guns, three unregistered assault rifles and two explosive devices, Burr said. Also seized were nearly 8,000 rounds of ammunition, he said.

In addition, officers found a hand grenade, but that device posed no threat, authorities said.

Arrested was 42-year-old Phillip Martin Cook of Oxnard. He was booked into County Jail in Ventura on suspicion of possessing machine guns, assault weapons not registered before 1989 and destructive devices in a public place, a jail spokeswoman said.

Cook was being held in lieu of $250,000 bail Saturday, she said.

When officers went to the residence several weeks ago on the domestic dispute call, they saw several possibly illegal weapons in Cook’s possession, Burr said. They used the information to obtain the search warrant and arrested Cook without incident, he said.

An investigation is continuing.