Man with cache of powerful weapons arrested at Pasadena transit station
Sheriff’s deputies approached a man who was urinating on a planter Wednesday at a Pasadena transit station and made an alarming discovery.
In his duffel bag, the deputies found a cache of weapons, including a loaded AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, a handgun, rope, a machete, two loaded 30-round magazines, several rounds of loose ammunition and a notebook with unidentified writings, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The handgun’s markings indicated it was restricted for those in law enforcement or government, officials said.
The deputies quickly arrested Christopher Harrison Goodine, 28, at the Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line station shortly after 9 a.m. Goodine was taken to county lockup, where he’s being held on $10,000 bail, according to jail records.
Investigators were still looking into Goodine and his plans.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Sheriff Jim McDonnell said there was no evidence of a link to terrorism, and he credited deputies with averting catastrophic violence.
“For these deputies, just another day … looking at the small things that end up turning into big things,” McDonnell said. “There but for the grace of God, we could have had a tragedy today here in Los Angeles.”
The deputies — who provide security to Metro’s bus and rail lines across the county — had been on patrol at the sheriff station. They were driving away when they spotted the man, later identified as Goodine, urinating in public.
“We don’t know what could have happened if he wasn’t taken into custody,” McDonnell said.
Goodine is a resident of Union City, Ga. A man with the same name was arrested in 2015 after he walked into the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, wearing a bulletproof vest and a ski mask, DNAInfo reported.
At the time, New York police described him as a “quasi-homeless” man who had brushes with the law in Virginia, Georgia, Florida and Washington, D.C.
Goodine is scheduled to appear in a Pasadena courtroom Friday, according to jail records. It’s unclear if he is being represented by an attorney.
Twitter: @MattHjourno
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