Police: Guns, bomb-making material found in Milford man’s apartment

MILFORD — Police found an illegal assault weapon and bomb-making materials inside a Railroad Avenue man’s apartment in September after his mother told police he had threatened to blow up the building, according to details from the man’s arrest warrant.

Zachary Gallipoli was arrested on gun and explosives charges this month. He was also charged with disorderly conduct and second-degree threatening in a separate incident in October.

The arrest warrant said that Gallipoli “possessed enough material and the required components to assemble a working explosive device/bomb.”

“A Connecticut State Police bomb squad explosives test was conducted on some of the seized evidence and this test was positive for explosive materials,” Detective Sgt. Douglass Youd wrote in the warrant.

When Gallipoli spoke to police inside his apartment, he told them he would never hurt anyone. In a note police found on his phone later, he allegedly said he was using the explosive materials to make rockets.

A message was left with his lawyer Thursday.

Police were called to Gallipoli’s apartment the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 2 after his mother reported he had made suicidal and homicidal statements.

Police said Gallipoli “told his mother that if the police came to his apartment door, he had explosives and would blow up the building,” the warrant says.

After seven hours of back and forth, cops talked their way into the apartment, where they said Gallipoli appeared “unstable.” The warrant said he tried to run after one of them as they entered his bedroom, after which he was subdued and detained.

Police said they found guns in the closet, under a pillow, under Gallipoli’s bed, and under his desk.

He had seven firearms registered, including two AM-15 assault rifles, according to the report.

There was also what police described as an Auto Precision M4E1, which police said was classified as an illegal assault weapon based on the gun having a detachable magazine, folding stock, pistol grip, and flash suppressor.

Police also reported finding three illegal large capacity magazines during the search of Gallipoli’s apartment — as well as what looked like explosives, prompting a call to the state police bomb squad and FBI.

The search also turned up detonator cords and books on counterinsurgency tactics, as well as wires, fuses, and a host of chemicals including aluminum oxide powder, boric acid, potassium hydroxide, ammonium nitrate, ammonium perchlorate, sulfur powder, red iron oxide, dextrin, barium nitrate, and lead oxide, police said.

Gallipoli was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital for psychiatric treatment, where police have been unable to interview him, according to the warrant.

Investigators later found a note on Gallipoli’s cell phone dated in June directed “to whom it may concern.”

“This is for federal law enforcement officers,” the note said. “In the past two weeks I have made Amazon purchases of chemicals for use in designing micro 12-18 inch amateur rockets. I believe by using similar compounds in professional rockets I can achieve super-fast rockets to his 1000 feet. I have no intention of using the chemicals in any manner which could be illegal. Nor do I have any intention of building a bomb.”

“I’m writing this now in the events someone wants to know my intentions,” the same note said later, according to the warrant, “It’s also interesting that these chemicals are so widely available.”

Gallipoli also sent texts in which he said his use of the chemicals was legitimate.

But police believe he “took significant and substantial steps in the course of his personal conduct and his personal actions to intend to possess (an) explosive device/bomb.”

Gallipoli was released from the hospital Oct. 8, but soon after arriving home was arrested on threatening charges.

Gallipoli is due in court Dec. 1. He is free on $75,00 bond. His case has been continued several times while he has been in psychiatric care at the hospital, according to the warrant.