5 Semi-Automatic Guns, Including Assault Rifle, Stolen From Tosa Home

Five semi-automatic weapons, including an assault rifle, are on the streets after a burglary Monday at a Washington Highlands home that held what a police officer called a "cache" of unsecured firearms and ammunition.

According to police reports: 

At 11:14 p.m. Monday, police were called to the residence in the 1600 block of Mountain Avenue following a report of a burglary with the theft of an assault rifle and four semi-automatic handguns.

The homeowner said he’d gone out a couple of hours earlier to get a bite to eat and come back to find some things disturbed and some of his guns missing. He said he wasn’t sure whether he had locked up the home when he left, and police would find no sign of a forced entry.

He said he believed that the burglar had been hiding in the home when he returned, and had then escaped, heard but unseen, just before he called police.

Officers found the home in general disarray, with a number of weapons and firearms accessories scattered on a large dining room table, including a pump-action shotgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a shoulder holster with a number of loaded magazines.

In the attic, officers found an unlocked "cache" of rifles, shotguns and ammunition. All together, the officer said, he saw about 10 firearms and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in different locations throughout the house, all of them unsecured.

In the man’s bedroom were an empty rifle case and several empty pistol cases. The man said this was what he had first noticed when he came home, and was still taking stock of what he was missing when a friend arrived with her three children.

He said he took them all upstairs to show them that he had been burglarized, and while they were upstairs, they heard the door alarm go off and the back door shutting.

WISN 12 Video: Washington Highlands neighbors react to news of stolen guns

He had video cameras installed outside the door but had not been able to provide police any footage as of the most recent report. The homeowner reported as missing:

• One Sig Sauer 5.56mm semi-automatic assault rifle
• One Kahr Arms .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol with laser sight
• One Intratec Tec-9 9mm semi-automatic pistol
• One Smith & Wesson .22-caliber long rifle-chambered semi-automatic pistol
• One Sig Sauer P239 9mm semi-automatic pistol

Police have entered those firearms in a missing weapons database. Officers combed the area and canvassed neighbors, but they found no evidence.

Their only potential lead: Someone had removed a bottle of Patron tequila from a liquor cabinet and then set it down on the floor – and the homeowner said it wasn't him or any of his guests who moved it.

A detective collected the bottle for possible latent fingerprints. There was no report on whether it had yet been processed.