Quick Take
An Aptos resident says he found a gun near Aptos High School during a morning walk with his dog on Sunday, setting off an ongoing law enforcement investigation. He described the incident, which has not been confirmed by police, as “divine intervention.”
An Aptos resident claims to have found a gun and ammunition near Aptos High School on Sunday, a discovery that triggered an ongoing investigation.
Mike Perez, 55, described the discovery in a post on Nextdoor on Monday and offered more details in an interview on Tuesday, saying it was a “miracle” that he spotted it.
Sgt. Ryan Farotte of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office declined to confirm details of Perez’s account to Lookout, as the department is still investigating the incident, though he confirmed that the gun and ammo were reported to police by a person unaffiliated with law enforcement.
Perez told Lookout that he and his 9-year-old Pomeranian, Bear, were on their daily morning walk on a wooded trail near the baseball field, southwest of the school by its entrance, between 7 and 8 a.m. on Sunday when he noticed his dog acting unusual.
Bear was staring intently on a patch of bushes — which Perez said he normally avoids because he believes they contain poison oak — with one paw raised, as if he were a pointer dog on the hunt.
Perez said he then noticed that a fern frond was pointing in the opposite direction as the rest of the plants, as if the vegetation had been disturbed. When he got closer, Perez said, he saw a black and red backpack partially concealed with leaves.
“I’m still blown away by it,” Perez said. “Usually we fly right past, I got my headphones in, I got my music going on, and we actually jog and run right past that area. On this day, [Bear] perused around and didn’t do his normal path.”
According to Perez’s account, he then touched the top of the backpack and felt something “square and hard.” He said he at first assumed it was a phone, but when he lifted the bag up and felt its weight, he guessed it might be a laptop.
But the bag was soaking wet, he said, which made him even more curious. Perez said he unzipped the backpack’s upper compartment and saw a gun magazine, and then opened the second compartment and saw the handle of a gun.
Perez described the gun as one capable of using magazines commonly associated with AR-15-style rifles. He said he knows about guns because his family members were in the military and worked in law enforcement, adding that he used to shoot at a range with friends.
He didn’t know if the gun was loaded, he said, so he was scared it might fire unexpectedly. He described how he moved the bag from the bushes and onto the nearby concrete path away from his pet, before he emptied it and examined its contents.
“I’m just gonna take this thing apart so it cannot work. That’s what I’m gonna do,” Perez said, describing his thought process at the time. “I was looking around and scanning the whole time for second shooters, because I’m like, somebody’s going to come back for this.”
He said the weapon appeared to be heavily customized and he did not see a serial number. The pistol grip handle had been wrapped in black electrical tape, he said. Perez said he disassembled the stock of the gun and checked the chamber for bullets, and found it empty.
“When I could see through everything, I’m like, ‘All right, it’s clear, it’s safe,’ and spread everything apart, and then immediately called the cops,” Perez said.
Perez said he told the responding officers the story and gave them all his information, he said, though he declined to provide a DNA sample because he didn’t want it “floating around in a criminal database,” as he is a “model citizen.”
Perez said a responding officer found a ski mask about 10 feet away from the backpack. Perez said he never saw it directly but was there when police discovered it and heard them yell, “Mask!”
Farotte, with the sheriff’s office, told Lookout that he has seen Perez’s account online, but declined to confirm specifics of his story beyond the date of the initial report to police.
“We just want to make sure the public is aware that we are doing everything that we can to make sure that all the schools, children within the county are safe,” Farotte said.
Perez’s story has gone locally viral, with many concerned parents thanking him and Bear on social media platforms like Facebook for reporting their discovery.
When asked if discovering the gun frightened Perez, he brushed it off, saying he had been raised by “asskickers.” He said finding the gun instead made him feel “pissed off.”
Perez said he feared the location of the backpack could have allowed someone to fire from higher ground toward the campus below, potentially trapping students and staff coming to school from Freedom Boulevard or Mariner Way.
The sheriff’s office searched the campus and surrounding areas with a bomb detecting dog and bomb squad, according to a Pajaro Valley Unified School District release on Sunday.
“I wanted to find this dude,” Perez said. “Another Columbine, a piece of s–t like that. … If I got a hold of those kids, I would rip ‘em to pieces.”
Perez became emotional at several points in his interview with Lookout and described the incident as “divine intervention.”
He said he was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer five years ago, and “chose to die” instead of moving forward with necessary surgeries for treatment. A recovering alcoholic, he was struggling to stay sober at the time, Perez said.
But one night, when Bear was lying on his chest and staring deeply into his eyes, he changed his mind.
“I’m just like, ‘OK, all right, ‘We got this, dude, we got this,’” Perez recalled telling his dog. “I’m gonna stay alive, just so you can have a good life.”
Soon after, Perez said his desire to drink subsided, and doctors said the tumor was gone.
“I’m so glad that if I survived cancer and was given a purpose to live, maybe it was so we could prevent a tragedy from happening,” Perez said, in tears. “I really shouldn’t be here, statistically and otherwise. Be kind before you die is my message to everyone.”
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