Masked gunmen steal 33 firearms from Stanislaus County Fairgrounds ahead of gun show
TURLOCK — A hold-up at a Stanislaus County gun show has police looking for a pair of armed robbers and the 33 handguns they got away with.
The robbery took place in the aftermath of a Stanislaus County Fairgrounds gun show showdown between two armed robbers and a pair of unarmed security guards
Turlock police spokesperson Dominique Sanchez says the robbers, wearing ski masks, snuck into the showroom before the show opened at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday.
"They pointed their gun at them and told them, 'Don't move,' and then they took off running in fear of their life," Sanchez said. "Those individuals came in through a bathroom window."
The masked men then grabbed 34 guns from a single vendor and took off, dropping one gun and a ski mask near a canal.
Erica Pazos and her young family live across the street from the fairgrounds. She saw investigators searching for evidence after the suspects got away.
"I saw just the two cops looking for something, scoping out the whole area and I don't know what was going on," Pazos said. "I have two babies and they like to play outside so for something like that to happen, it freaks me out."
As gun violence explodes across the country, a new report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shows theft is a significant avenue through which legal firearms are diverted into criminal hands.
"So we have those serial numbers, and we have entered it into the Automated Firearms System, so if anyone was to be caught in possession of it, we will be able to link them back to this robbery.
The ski mask found by authorities has been sent to the Department of Justice crime lab to determine if any DNA can help identify a suspect.