Live Ammunition Found in Trash Bin in Encinitas

Several rounds of live ammunition were turned over to sheriff’s deputies Thursday by a migrant worker who had carried them on a bus to a hiring hall in Encinitas.

Sgt. Conrad Grayson said the unidentified man had been rummaging through a trash bin behind the Big Bear Market on Mission Road and El Camino Real in Oceanside about 8 a.m.

The man put the explosives in his pockets and took a bus to a temporary labor hall set up in a trailer on El Camino Real. Once there, the Sheriff’s Department was notified and its bomb disposal detail was dispatched.

Grayson said the rounds were five .50-caliber machine-gun rounds, three 25-millimeter anti-aircraft rounds, a highly explosive incendiary device, an armor-piercing round and a practice round.

Grayson said the worker also found another round in the trash bin, but it was too hot to pick up, so he left it there.

When officials went to find it about 10 a.m., the trash bin had already been emptied.

“It’s probably at the San Marcos landfill by know,” Grayson said, adding that finding it would be like looking for “a needle in a haystack.”

Grayson speculated that the explosives probably came from Camp Pendleton and said the matter had been turned over to the Marine Corps for further investigation.