On Aug 28, Issaquah Police arrested a Bothell man for illegally possessing a “ghost gun,” or a firearm without a serial number or way of identifying who it belongs to or where it came from.

According to charging documents, police officers were dispatched to perform a welfare check in the Fred Meyer parking lot at 6100 E Lake Sammamish Parkway SE after they received reports of an individual “slumped over” in a vehicle.

Responding officers used a police database to discern that the individual in the vehicle was likely a subject with prior felony convictions that included manufacturing and intent to distribute illicit drugs.

When officers approached the vehicle, they noticed a second individual was also in the car and seats in the car had been moved to reveal what appeared to be an assault rifle in the trunk of the car, which the individual with prior conviction would have been prohibited from possessing.

Officers also noticed a small baggie of blue pills on the floor of the car that they believed looked similar to the appearance of fentanyl or oxycodone pills.

Officers drafted a search warrant for the vehicle which was approved by a judge and on Aug. 30 officers searched the vehicle to discover an AR-15 loaded with thirty 5.56 mm rounds. According to police the rifle was not stamped with a brand or a serial number to identify it.

The previously convicted individual who was driving the car and found to be in possession of the weapon, Brent D. Eichler, was arrested. Police also found over 100 pills in the vehicle suspected to be either fentanyl or oxycodone.

Eichler was charged with possession of a firearm in the first degree, a dangerous weapon violation.