Police: Loaded guns, ammunition seized from career criminal's Boston residence

BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) – A convicted drug dealer was arraigned on Thursday as an armed career criminal after police recovered two loaded firearms from a room occupied moments earlier by a child.

Magnetic Tom, 30, a.k.a. Tom Magnetic was charged with two counts each of unlawful possession of a firearm, improper storage of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition. Because of prior drug distribution convictions in 2003 and 2005, he was additionally arraigned as a Level II armed career criminal.

Bail was set at $100,000.

Members of the Boston Police Youth Violence Strike Force, aided by the department's SWAT team, executed a search warrant on Thursday morning at Tom's apartment on Washington Street in Dorchester.

Officers made a forced entry into the apartment at about 5:00 a.m. Officers located Tom in a bedroom with a 28-year-old woman and a 1-year-old child.

Police also found four other children ranging from 6 to 11 years of age inside the residence.

The woman declined medical attention and left with her children.

Officers read Tom his Miranda rights and notified him that the warrant authorized them to search his apartment for a firearm.

Tom admitted to having firearms in the residence, but claimed they were to protect his family.

Tom then directed the officers to a plastic bag of clothes inside the room. That bag contained a Hi Point .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun. Tom also directed the officers to a night table near the bed, under which was a Ruger .22 caliber handgun.

Tom further directed the officers to "extra ammo" in the drawer of that night table; the officers found 28 rounds of ammunition and a feeding device or magazine with no corresponding firearm.

Despite the presence of five young children in the apartment, neither of the loaded firearms was locked or secured in any way. Both were loaded, the Hi Point with eight rounds of ammunition and the Ruger with six rounds of ammunition.

A search of the apartment yielded no further contraband, but did turn up evidence that Tom resided there and thus had control over the two loaded firearms and ammunition.

Tom will return to court on Dec. 3.

Cox Media Group