17-year-old in St. Paul charged after county seizes nearly a dozen illegally possessed weapons, including ghost gun
A 17-year-old boy has been charged after Ramsey County authorities say they confiscated nearly a dozen illegally possessed weapons, including a ghost gun.
The boy has been charged with 12 felony counts, all relating to a cache of weapons that investigators found in their search.
Court records show that he was previously charged in a 2024 incident where he was alleged to have pulled a gun on someone at a rec center in St. Paul, though the charge was dismissed from the record after he served 180 days probation and a term of community service.
On Friday, the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office reported that a raid on a home on the east side of St. Paul resulted in the recovery of "ghost guns, automatic machine guns, multiple extended magazines and enough ammunition for multiple drive-by shootings."
Switches are conversion devices added to handguns that can make them fire automatically.
The search was conducted near the intersection of Case Avenue East and Burr Street North, just a block away from an elementary school. According to the sheriff's office, deputies were surveilling the house when the 17-year-old came outside and "jumped into a parked car." Police arrested him at that point, and said he had a gun equipped with a switching a bag on his person.
When police searched the house, they turned up nine more guns along with a bullet-resistant garment, at least four iPhones in various colors, a gym bag containing three empty magazines, an auto sear in a clear plastic bag and loose ammunition.
Police say the teen remains in custody. The juvenile petition filed in Ramsey County says when police talked to him, he "boasted" about his "collection" of guns.
"Switches are certainly a concern," said Jake, who lives in the neighborhood. "There's been occasions in St. Paul where I've heard automatic gunfire that are probably from those."
Ramsey County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Joe Kill was at the home during the search warrant. Kill said ghost and switch guns are a big problem, especially in the hands of young people.
"We see all the time that they're used in multiple different cases, assaults, drive-by shootings. That's why we take a stance and try to get every single ghost gun, gun illegally posessed, gun off the streets that we can."
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a 2022 rule that regulates ghost guns, or unserialized firearms. The regulation was intended to address a surge in crimes committed using ghost guns, which can be made with 3D printers or kits and parts available online.
Late last year, Attorney General Keith Ellison filed suit against a popular gun manufacturer, alleging that the company turned a "blind eye, again and again" to how easily "switch" devices can convert semi-automatic handguns into fully-automatic machine guns.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated 13 guns had been recovered. The story has been updated to reflect only nine guns were recovered.
