A man who was stopped for a traffic check in Queens by New York police and had extensive armor has been taken into custody.
Judd Sanson, 27, was taken into custody on Wednesday on a number of counts related to illegal weapons after officers found in his car a 9-millimeter Glock pistol, nine filled magazines, handcuffs, heavy body armor, items from the NYPD uniform, two axes, numerous knives, a stun gun, a weighted whip, and an expandable baton.
“Members of this department make gun arrests, weapons arrests, arrests for knives every day, but an arrest of this magnitude, the amount of ammunition, NYPD paraphernalia in the car was significant,” Chief of Department Jeffrey B. Maddrey stated to reporters.
An orange MTA vest and a Guys Fakes mask were also found by the police.
The NYPD reports that on Wednesday at around 1:30 a.m., police saw a black Ford Explorer near 86th Street and Ditmars Blvd. with a blacked-out license plate. The SUV was referred to by police as a “ghost vehicle.”
Following a traffic check, officers looked into the matter and found that the motorist had the arsenal in the car.
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Sanson, according to Maddrey, is the suspect. The department is attempting to verify the address he provided, which is in Queens.
“We will continue to investigate this incident,” Maddrey stated. “Our members are out there, 1:30 in the morning, members of our public safety team, while many people were sleeping. I was sleeping. Our officers are out there to make sure that we are safe.”
According to Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, the NYPD has pulled 2,875 cars with phony license plates and 683 ghost cars off the road so far this year.
The deputy commissioner reported that there is an increase in the number of gunshots, robberies, burglaries, and home invasions being reported to the NYPD.
According to him, around 80% of the time that suspects utilize stolen cars to commit these crimes, the cars have license plate covers on them.
“Sometimes I feel that being a police officer is a thankless job. I feel like the officers don’t get the credit and the acknowledgment that they deserve from making these types of arrests,” Daughtry stated.
The reason for the suspect’s covered license plate and the reason behind the confiscation of all the firearms are being looked into by the police. Whether there was a terrorist threat involved was not confirmed by the authorities.
