SANTA CLARITA : 32 Homes Evacuated After Guns, Explosives Are Found

Federal agents evacuated 32 homes Tuesday after they raided a house in Valencia and confiscated a collection of military explosives and automatic weapons.

Joseph Yohanna, 31, was taken into custody on suspicion of possessing unregistered firearms after agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms served a search warrant at his home.

Yohanna, a bodyguard for a record company and a reserve member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, was taken into custody without incident as he left the two-story home he owns in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood, said BATF Special Agent John D’Angelo.

Eight claymore mines, each containing 25 to 30 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives, two incendiary devices, four automatic weapons, eight silencers, nine handguns, two shotguns and one rifle were found within the house and a safe in the garage, authorities said.

A claymore mine is a military anti-personnel mine with ball bearings embedded in resin and C-4 (plastic) explosives whose blast can be focused in the direction of an advancing enemy.

“I don’t think he possessed it to sell, or to sell the stuff to anyone of particular political views,” D’Angelo said. “I think he had them because, for lack of a better term, he was enamored of the stuff.”