Police: Arsenal of weapons found inside Bustleton home

Police say an arsenal of weapons were found inside a Bustleton home. FOX 29's Dave Schratwieser has the latest.

NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA - Police say an arsenal of weapons were found inside a Bustleton home.

Police were called to a home on the 9700 block of Northeast Avenue Wednesday to check on the welfare of an elderly man that's when they got quite the surprise.

"There were 20 or so rifles to your semi-automatic M-16 to an AR-15, all had interchangeable parts, Northeast Detectives Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum said.

While the 72-year-old was taken to a hospital for evaluation, a search turned up 19 handguns, 20 rifles, including those assault weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition, according to investigators.

Police say the former gun dealer also had eight inert hand grenades, live military-grade smoke grenades and a fully assembled pipe bomb that was only missing black powder. The bomb squad and SWAT were called in.

"They opened up a cabinet door and noticed a pipe with two end caps on it. We immediately backed out, the bomb squad had to come back out," Lt. Rosenbaum explained.

Police and federal investigators are now checking and test firing all of the guns, some of which were legally registered, along with gun parts found throughout the home.

"ATF will help us out with the tracing of the weapons. We'll backtrack and figure out where they all came from," Lt. Rosenbaum said.