Weapons cache found during drug bust in Stamford

STAMFORD, Connecticut (WABC) -- A drug bust in Connecticut took a wild turn when police discovered several homemade bombs, a grenade and hundreds of weapons inside a house.

It seems like your typical everyday upper middle class quiet suburban block.

"It's just a wonderful neighborhood, just normal everyday people," a neighbor said.

Except, neighbors say, for the family that lives there.

Neighbors thought the family was odd before police raided the home Thursday night.

Officials found 16 firearms including pistols, shotguns and rifles, but no permits.

"A number of the weapons had their serial numbers taken off; barrels cut too short a length, high capacity magazines he's not allowed to possess here," said Captain Richard Conklin, Stamford Police Department.

There were also hundreds of edged weapons.

"Knives, swords, axes," Conklin said.

Hundreds of homemade weapons like: "A lawnmower blade and sodered it to a long pole and sharpen it. That would be a very intense type of weapon. But all kinds of sharpened sticks and pipes and bats with nails driven through them," Conklin said.

There were also two grenades and a dozen homemade explosives.

But wait, there's more. There was a sophisticated marijuana grow facility in his basement.

24-year-old Alexander Braverman is now charged with operating a drug factory and a litany of firearms charges.

"While he's taken responsibility and claimed all the weapons, drugs, explosives that they're all his, there's certainly some indication that the parents would have known or should have known because these things were so much in the open, it's just an odd sort of setup. An odd sort of household," Conklin said.

"We would hear them fighting constantly running up the street," said Dorothy Higgins, a neighbor.

"Yeah, she tried calling the police and FBI to describe her husband's conspiracies," said Kent Higgins, a neighbor.

Neighbors say they weren't surprised when the cops showed up Thursday night, because they say they're always showing up there.

Police say the family appears to be survivalists of some sort, with stockpiles of food and water.

Investigators say there's no indication Braverman has ties to terrorism.

He allegedly told cops he's a collector.

"He was certainly kind of pleasant when you saw him but at the same token he would make you kind of nervous because he wouldn't stop talking so he was a little bit odd," a neighbor said.

The FBI is assisting in this investigation and additional charges are pending.

Law enforcement still has to determine what Braverman was doing with all those weapons and drugs, and if his parents were involved in any way.