At about 4:30am Sunday morning, Turlock Police responded to an armed robbery that had just occurred at the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds in the 900 block of N. Broadway.
The caller was one of two unarmed security guards working the gun show, who reported that two masked men had broken into the building where the gun show was being held, brandishing a gun.
The gun show wasn’t going on at the time and the security guards ran off from the building, calling police.
Officers arrived on scene a short time later and set up a perimeter, deploying an indoor drone and canine from the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office.
Officers and deputies searched the building a short time later, but the men had already made off through a hole in a gate with 33 handguns that they had taken from a vendor booth.
A ski mask and a gun that had previously been reported stolen were left behind and able to be recovered.
Serial numbers for all 33 guns were obtained and entered as stolen in the Automated Firearms System.
The Turlock Police Department is working closely with the Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on the case.
