A former nuclear plant worker has been arrested for allegedly making terrorist threats against the San Onofre plant in California.
|
|
The San Onofre nuclear plant
|
The 43-year-old man, who was not named, was taken into custody yesterday Police later found a cache of more than 200 weapons at his home in Laguna Niguel and a storage facility in San Juan Capistrano, Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Colin Murphy said.
"The employee was recently terminated. At the same time, he had made some threats to the company and to fellow employees at the power plant," Mr Murphy said.
Details on the nature of the threats were not immediately available.
Sheriff's deputies found 54 weapons at the man's home during a search on Tuesday. They raided the storage shed today and found 150 weapons, including assault rifles, small arms and several ammunition cans, Mr Murphy said. Some of the assault rifles were illegal to own in California.
Three sheriff's deputies searching the storage unit at about 1 a.m. PDT were treated and released from a nearby hospital after inhaling an unidentified yellow vapor that came out of an ammunition can opened in the search, he said.
"The deputies described the effect of the vapor as almost like a tear gas," he said.
The vapor was tested by the fire department, and was not tear gas, although tests are pending.