SALON

Friday, Feb 1, 2013 9:08 PM UTC

Bombs, guns and swastikas found in Connecticut home

Police and FBI agents located the materials in Stamford, just 25 miles away from the site of the Newtown massacre

By

Topics: Southern Poverty Law Center, Newtown, Sandy Hook Shootings, Connecticut,

Bombs, guns and swastikas found in Connecticut home (Credit: David Acosta Allely via Shutterstock)
This article was originally published by The Southern Poverty Law Center.

Just down the road from the scene of the December school massacre in Newtown, Conn., police in Stamford have discovered a home filled with bomb-making materials, assorted firearms and white supremacist and anti-police propaganda.

The Southern Poverty Law Center Stamford police and FBI agents today identified and interviewed a middle-aged man who apparently had been illegally living in the home, triggering an inspection Wednesday by health inspections. The home is less than 700 feet from a middle school. The suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, has not been charged while authorities discuss whether to proceed with state or federal charges.

Police discovered loaded weapons, including rifles and shotguns, near entry points to the home, white supremacist and anti-police propaganda, a monitoring system to watch the outside of the home and a reinforced escape tunnel that ran underground through the backyard, the Stamford Patch reported. They also found bombs that were being prepared with PVC pipes loaded with nuts and bolts that were apparently meant to serve as anti-personnel shrapnel.

In addition to swastikas, a poster inside the home depicted a police funeral with a derogatory message scrawled across it, Stamford Police Chief Jon Fontneau told the newspaper. Loaded firearms were discovered near entry points to the home.

“I’ve been on hundreds, if not thousands, of search warrants,” the chief said, “and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

D.J. McAneny, a reporter for the Stamford Patch, told Hatewatch today that police and explosives experts were at the house at 170-172 Vine Road throughout the night but had cleared the scene by midday today. Stamford is 25 miles from Newtown, where 26 people were murdered on Dec. 14.

Anne Fountain, director of the Stamford Department of Health and Social Services, said her department had received the initial complaint about the property in May, but workers were refused entrance when they went to the home, the Stamford newspaper reported.

“We had received a complaint of an illegal dwelling with several code violations, but he wouldn’t let us in,” Fountain told the newspaper. “We’d been there a second time prior to [Wednesday]’s visit, so this was on ongoing complaint. We had to obtain a search warrant to access the home, which is why the police were present.”

The Stamford police chief said that when one of his officers, accompanying the health department worker, discovered explosives, they evacuated and police took over the investigation.

Tax records show the property is owned by William Hertle Properties LLC, and Debra Saturno-Galang is listed as co-owner, the Stamford Patch reported.

The police chief said health workers and his officer who initially entered the home were overcome by the smell of urine and feces from the basement, apparently from dogs that weren’t let outside, Fontneau said.

More Bill Morlin.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 9 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
382 points383 points | 416 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills -- radical cuts destroy economies and lives, and the honest numbers and economics keep proving it
192 points193 points | 34 comments
vote
Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain wants to send women to jail who don't report their miscarriages to the police
203 points204 points | 29 comments
vote
Corporate greed is poisoning America — literally
160 points161 points | 19 comments
vote
Poll shows Bachmann trailing in 2014 reelection race: A new PPP poll shows her Dem challenger with a slight lead
31 points32 points | 5 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations