Granada Hills Man Held After Carrying Guns Near Pentagon

A California man who was recently offered a job on the Defense Department police force was charged Thursday with falsely claiming to be an officer of the U.S. government after being arrested with weapons, ammunition and bomb-making manuals in his car, Pentagon officials said.

The man, identified in a Defense Protective Service affidavit as Anthony Premo of Granada Hills, was arraigned in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The affidavit said that Premo, who was arrested after running a stop sign in a Pentagon parking area Wednesday, had two rifles, two knives, an unspecified quantity of black powder, 20 rounds of .40-caliber ammunition and an empty manufacturer’s box for a 1911-model Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol.

The affidavit said Premo also had in his car survivalist literature, freeze-dried food and manuals for manufacturing and using bombs and booby-traps, according to Navy Capt. Timothy Taylor, a Pentagon spokesman.

Another Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, said he was not aware of any threats made by Premo.

Taylor said Premo was on an Office of Personnel Management list of prospective federal hires and had been offered a job as a Pentagon policeman, to start on March 27. The job offer has been withdrawn, Taylor said.

The affidavit said that Premo told the Pentagon officer who stopped him Wednesday evening that he had a weapon with him, and he showed the officer a document that he said was a permit for a concealed handgun. He also showed the officer unspecified identification from Oregon.

Premo originally told the arresting officer that he was an employee of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but he later said he had left the INS in 1994.