Family Hoarded Weapons While Living in Children's Museum: Deputies

A family was recently found in possession of several weapons while living inside a children's museum in Nevada, according to police.

According to local news station KOLO, the incident occurred on June 30 when a man was arrested following reports that a 2-year-old toddler was unsupervised near the Children's Museum of Northern Nevada.

"Officers at the scene were able to evaluate that the call was associated with a previously known call and that it originated from the Children's Museum...The child was actually found by a business. He had gotten out, crossed a very busy...main artery," Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong said while speaking with the local news station.

The incident came shortly after a parent complained to the museum's summer camp that her daughter was left unattended by an adult running the camp, according to KOLO.

"My daughter told me that the lady running the camp, Amber, had let my daughter and her daughter go play outside on the front steps of the museum, unattended by an adult," said Jennifer Trotter.

After what her daughter had told her, Trotter pulled her children out of the summer camp and called the museum's board president on June 20 to complain.

"He told me that he would take care of it," she said, according to KOLO.

According to Carson Now, after police found the 2-year-old child unsupervised near the museum, they spoke with the child's father, Wilbert Calhoun. Police also spoke with Calhoun's other children, who informed deputies that they were currently living in the museum, which Calhoun initially disputed.

The police report of the incident, obtained by Carson Now, stated that after speaking with the father, deputies were escorted through the museum by a board member where they observed signs of a family living inside when they found blankets, mattresses, food, dishes, and other personal belongings.

Calhoun and his wife worked for the museum, with Calhoun acting as a janitor and his wife as a manager. The two, who have five children, have since been fired, KOLO reported.

Calhoun was taken into custody shortly after for child neglect, however, while transporting him to the sheriff's headquarters, deputies received a call from the board member who discovered two firearms in a storage room of the museum, Carson Now reported.

According to Carson Now, deputies discovered "dozens of magazines" of ammunition, one pistol, and one AK-47 style rifle, as well as several knives, three gun suppressors that aren't allowed without federal government approval, a taser, a baton, and marijuana paraphernalia. The items were stored in an unlocked hardware room, which "could easily be accessed by a wandering child," according to the police report.

Following the discovery of the weapons and other items in the museum's storage room, Calhoun was taken into custody on a felony weapons charge as well.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, the board of directors of the Children's Museum of Northern Nevada said, "To all of the members and visitors to the Children's Museum of Northern Nevada, we would like to offer our most sincere apologies for the incident that came to light on June 30th. We are shocked and saddened that this happened on our watch, and we are working hard to make sure that nothing like this will ever happen again. We are looking into the best path to reopen in a way that not only assures the safety of all of our visitors, but that we as a community can be proud of as well."

Newsweek reached out to the Carson City Sheriff's Office for comment.