SAN JOSE \u2014 Police have announced the arrest earlier this month of a Stockton-area man who they allege trafficked hundreds of so-called \u201cGlock switches\u201d that convert popular handguns into fully-automatic pistols.<\/p>\n
The underlying investigation began in mid-November the San Jose Police Department\u2019s GHOST gun-suppression team got a tip from the Santa Clara County Probation Department about illegal gun making, according to a police news release.<\/p>\n
Detectives eventually identified Kenneth Jeremiah Tafoya, a 20-year-old resident of Lockeford \u2014 a San Joaquin County town about 20 miles northeast of Stockton \u2014 as someone they say \u201cimported or manufactured at least 1,700 machine gun conversionary devices\u201d from overseas for sale in Northern California and the Central Valley.\u00a0The devices are commonly known as \u201cGlock switches\u201d because they are designed to modify Glock pistols for rapid fire.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 14, police said detectives, joined by the county Gun Violence Task Force run out of the district attorney\u2019s office, arrested Tafoya in Stockton on suspicion of \u201cvarious firearm related offenses.\u201d He was criminally charged two days later, and he is not in county jail custody, records show.<\/p>\n
A search of a home linked to Tafoya resulted in the seizure of a handful of firearms, a Glock switch, ammunition, and \u201cfirearm manufacturing precursor materials,\u201d police said. The investigation later grew to include the California Highway Patrol, and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.<\/p>\n
In statements included in the news release, SJPD Chief Paul Joseph said \u201cthe importation, manufacturing, and sale of illegal firearms will not be tolerated in our community \u2026 our officers dismantled a dangerous operation, preventing these weapons from falling into the wrong hands and causing further harm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone with information about the gun operation alleged against Tafoya can contact Detective Jordan Epperson at 408-277-4161 or by email at\u00a04554@sanjoseca.gov<\/a>. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at\u00a0siliconvalleycrimestoppers.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 Police have announced the arrest earlier this month of a Stockton-area man who they allege…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[237,3622,7359,4270,5456,75060,9396,236,88,90,89,483,14230],"class_list":["post-152142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-arrest","tag-court","tag-district-attorney","tag-glock","tag-guns","tag-lockeford","tag-machine-gun","tag-police","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-stockton","tag-switches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}