Garman said police responded on April 28 to Rural King, 1476 Upper Valley Pike, on a report of a shoplifting incident. The store manager gave police a description of the two people and the vehicle reportedly involved.
“The officers approached the vehicle and began questioning the two individuals that were reportedly involved. While officers were talking to them, the officers requested to search their vehicle for the stolen merchandise from the store. Once the officers started looking in the vehicle, they noticed an AK-47 that was in the backseat of the vehicle,” Garman said.
Garmin said the two people, whom he identified as being from California, were then taken into custody and the vehicle was taken to the police department. He did not provide any additional information about the suspects.
Once officers got a search warrant for the vehicle, they found a large amount of cash, weapons and drugs, Garman said. He said two of the weapons were stolen guns - a handgun stolen out of Illinois and a 9mm assault rifle stolen out of Pickaway County.
Officers also found another AK-47 with a box of ammo that had “eight magazines inside of it with armor piercing bullets,” packaging for narcotics they believe had a “large amount of crystal meth that was packed inside of Kroger pancake mix boxes, Archway cookie boxes and other boxes of food items,” as well as $11,000 in cash, Garman said.
Garman said this incident is believed to be “the largest amount” of methamphetamine and weapons they’ve “ever seized” in the township.
“When you see the pictures of the weapons that was inside the vehicle it’s quite shocking,” Garman said. “What’s shocking for us is the compacity of the armor piercing rounds that they had, which could go through a bullet proof vest, in a vehicle. For this community to see people running around with drugs and those types of weapons, I don’t believe we’re used to that.”
No injuries were reported and the incident “ended safely for the officers and everyone involved.”
“We happened into a situation where there was a large amount of fire power that was taken off the street along with a great amount of methamphetamine,” said Police Chief Michael Stitzel. “To the hard work of the officers, Lt. Garman, and ATF and other agencies, hopefully we’ll get a conviction on this and continue working to get more off the street.”
The investigation is ongoing by German Twp. police, ATF and other departments.
About the Author
