A half-loaded handgun, an underground bunker accessible from a wooden hatch camouflaged with dirt, and more than 1,000 bicycles tucked in a separate tunnel were discovered along the Santa Ana River trail near a former homeless encampment where residents were recently displaced, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said this week. 
 
 The county began clearing more than 150 homeless people from the area between Warner and Edinger avenues on Nov. 7 after months of complaints from nearby condominium residents about unsanitary conditions and other nuisances at the encampment. 
 
 Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Puckett said the recent finds seem to add credence to Fountan Valley neighbors’ complaints that conditions along the river were unsafe. 
 
 “We’ve collected data over the last 2½ months that shows there’s a large criminal presence in the encampments, and this evidence would seem to back that data up,” Puckett said. 
 
 He said the Sheriff’s Department has made more than 260 arrests in the past several months in various encampments along the river trail in connection with crimes such as robbery, assault and trespassing. 
 
 However, homeless advocates have contended the county is criminalizing homelessness and shuffling the camps’ population around instead of solving the growing problem. 
 
 The county plans to permanently close the west side of the flood control channel between 17th Street in Santa Ana and Adams Avenue in Huntington Beach as it prepares to start maintenance of Orange County Flood Control District property along the trail, officials have said. 
 
 Before maintenance begins, Orange County Public Works officials have been tasked with cleaning debris and trash from the former encampment in Fountain Valley. 
 
 Puckett said officials found a .357 Magnum containing three empty shell casings — indicating to authorities that it had been fired — near the camp. The Sheriff’s Department is investigating where the gun came from. 
 
 Courtesy of the Orange County Sheriff's Department A .357 Magnum with three expended shell casings was found along the Santa Ana River trail in Fountain Valley, police say. A .357 Magnum with three expended shell casings was found along the Santa Ana River trail in Fountain Valley, police say. (Courtesy of the Orange County Sheriff's Department) 
 
 When public works crews arrived to clean up trash two weeks ago, they discovered more than 1,000 bicycles tucked into a tunnel along the concrete river bed in Santa Ana, just south of the river’s Fairview Street overpass. 
 
 “I’ve been doing this job for 20 years and even I was stunned by that one,” Puckett said. 
 
 Workers dragged out the bikes and hauled them to a storage yard. 
 
 Puckett said the department at some point will likely allow the public to look at the bikes in an effort to reunite people with lost or stolen property. 
 
 Authorities said there were indications that someone was living in the area of the bikes, but they haven’t identified whom that might have been or how and why the bikes were obtained. 
 
 Authorities said they don’t know how many of the bikes might have been stolen. 
 
 “Common sense would usually dictate if you have 1,000 bikes in a tunnel, some of them could be stolen,” Puckett said. 
 
 On Thursday, county officials found a man-made bunker six feet underground along the trail. A plywood trap door opened to wooden steps, which led to a 10-by-10-foot living space reinforced with wood beams. The room was tall enough for an adult to stand in, authorities said. 
 
 Courtesy of Orange County Sheriff's Department Authorities came across an underground bunker along the Santa Ana River trail in Fountain Valley. Authorities came across an underground bunker along the Santa Ana River trail in Fountain Valley. (Courtesy of Orange County Sheriff's Department) 
 
 Puckett said the bunker was empty when authorities stumbled upon it. 
 
 Kris Gillan, who lives in the New Chase condominiums near the river trail in Fountain Valley, said that of all the items found, she was most surprised to hear about the bunker. 
 
 “Nothing like guns, trash and needles would shock me, but the fact that someone had a whole downstairs living arrangement … it’s weird that they built it without us knowing,” she said. 
 
 Gillan said she can’t believe it took officials months to begin clearing the area. 
 
 “It’s like, ‘Shame on you, county — look what was going on,’” she said. “We tried to tell you.” 
 
 The trail was deserted Friday afternoon. Orange bags filled with trash were lined up waiting to be hauled away. 
 
 Nearby residents said most of the homeless people who had set up camp there packed up and left within three days of the county’s enforcement effort. 
 
 Gillan said the area is quiet and getting cleaner every day. 
 
 County officials hope to keep it that way. The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to pay California Panther Security $450,000 over the next two years to have unarmed security guards open and close gates along the trail and report trespassers to the Sheriff’s Department, according to a county staff report. 
 
 hannah.fry@latimes.com 
 
 Twitter: @HannahFryTCN 

 The makeshift bunker beneath a recently-displaced Fountain Valley homeless encampment was big enough for a grown person to stand inside, replete with wood-paneled walls and a support beam, and accessible only via a small hatch camouflaged to blend in with its dirt surroundings. 
 
 The half-loaded .357 Magnum found near the same camp, along the Santa Ana River, contained three empty shell casings – meaning it had been fired. 
 
 More coverage: Were 1,000 hidden bikes linked to homeless? Advocates say no, county says yes 
 
 And the 1,000 bicycles discovered hidden away in the flood-control channel’s dark tunnel system in Santa Ana, two miles north of the encampment, could suggest a large-scale theft ring. 
 
 Orange County Public Works discovered a bunker containing 1,000 bikes in the Fountain Valley homeless encampment area. (Photo courtesy of OC Sheriff’s Dept.) 
 
 The entrance to a bunker containing 1,000 bikes in the Fountain Valley homeless encampment area. (Photo courtesy of OC Sheriff’s Dept.) 
 
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 Needles can be find near a bunker containing 1,000 bikes in the Fountain Valley homeless encampment area. (Photo courtesy of OC Sheriff’s Dept.) 
 
 Orange County Public Works discovered a bunker containing 1,000 bikes in the Fountain Valley homeless encampment area. (Photo courtesy of OC Sheriff’s Dept.) 
 
 A loaded gun and 1,000 bikes were found in Fountain Valley homeless encampment bunker. (Photo courtesy of OCSD) 
 
 
 
 Orange County Public Works discovered a bunker in the Fountain Valley homeless encampment area. (Photo courtesy of OC Sheriff’s Dept.) 
 
 A homeless person rides past a drainage tunnel on Friday, Nov. 17, 2017, where earlier Orange County Public Works discovered a bunker near the Fountain Valley homeless encampment along the Santa Ana River. (Photo by Ken Steinhardt, Orange County Register/SCNG) 
 
 Orange County Public Works discovered a bunker in the Fountain Valley homeless encampment area. (Photo courtesy of OC Sheriff’s Dept.) 
 
 Homeless men ride past a bunker that was discovered by Orange County Public Works near the Fountain Valley homeless encampment. (Photo courtesy of OC Sheriff’s Dept.) 
 
 Orange County sheriff’s deputies and public employees said they uncovered unusual and dangerous conditions in the recently cleared homeless camps on the riverbed in Fountain Valley and in portions of the river to the north. The findings, they said, posed public safety risks and indicated that the area was rife with crime. 
 
 “It just backs up the data that we’ve collected, which says there is a significant criminal element in the homeless encampments,” sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Puckett said. 
 
 The sheriff’s department provided no evidence linking the gun or bicycles to any individuals living in the Fountain Valley encampment but said the investigation is ongoing. 
 
 County employees discovered the bunker Wednesday, Nov. 16, as part of a cleanup effort after the county forced about 200 people to move out of the area five days earlier. 
 
 The cavern’s hatch was concealed beneath a thin layer of dirt. But once workers opened the plywood trapdoor, they found a series of wooden steps that took them six feet underground, to a reinforced, 10-foot-by-10-foot room big enough for a 5-foot-7-inch person to stand upright. 
 
 Officials don’t know how the bunker was built or who used it. 
 
 “We’re not sure what (the room) was for – probably some type of living situation,” Puckett said. “It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before.” 
 
 The county moved to clear the encampment, located between Warner and Edinger avenues, following months of complaints from neighbors that homeless people were trespassing, harassing residents and stealing from nearby homes. Some of the discoveries, officials said, add credence to those neighbors’ complaints and fears. 
 
 The gun, for example, is of interest to investigators. Puckett declined to say where the gun was found, though he indicated it was discovered a week ago. He also couldn’t discuss if the gun was used in any open crimes or other details of the investigation. 
 
 The bicycle collection also is being investigated. 
 
 Though makeshift chop shops where bicycles are taken apart, cleaned and reassembled are a common sight along several portions of the lengthy riverbed homeless encampments, Pucket said he’d never seen a collection as big as the 1,000 bicycles hidden in Santa Ana. The bikes were found just south of the river’s Fairview Street overpass. 
 
 Puckett wouldn’t speculate how many of the bikes were stolen, citing the ongoing investigation, saying “common sense would dictate that if you have 1,000 bikes in a tunnel… some of them were stolen.” 
 
 After Public Works employees discovered the stockpile two weeks ago, workers labored to drag the bicycles out of the tunnels before hauling them off in four large trucks to a nearby storage yard. Puckett said at some point the department probably will let the public look at the cache in an effort to reunite lost or stolen bikes with their owners. 
 
 Fountain Valley police Sgt. Kham Vang said the city hadn’t recently experienced an increase in bike thefts, though he noted that most bicycle thefts go unreported. 
 
 But neighborhood residents offer a different story, saying they’ve noticed an increase in bike thefts and other crimes. 
 
 “I’m not surprised at any of these things they found, other than the bunker,” said Kris Gillan, who owns a condo near the riverbed. “This is why we tried and tried to get (sheriff’s deputies and Fountain Valley) out there, but nothing was done for a long, long time.” 
 
 She said a neighbor’s bike was stolen recently off a patio, and that she regularly saw people lurking in the complex and looking inside parked cars. As the encampment grew, she said, so did crime. 
 
 “I feel safer now that they’re gone,” Gillan said. 
 
 “But how did it get this bad? I hope the county has learned their lesson.” 
 
 Earlier this year, the sheriff’s department and local police departments disputed which agency had jurisdiction over portions of the riverbed, leaving some areas largely unpatrolled. That changed in September, when the sheriff’s department began patrolling the Santa Ana River encampments, making hundreds of arrests. And during the past week, the county began enforcing a public-access curfew to the river trail, hiring private security guards to help enforce it. 
 
 Supervisor Todd Spitzer said Thursday that the bicycles and the recovered gun were proof that “the riverbed encampments are a serious public safety concern and the county must continue to clear out these trespassers.” 
 
 But as the county worked last Friday to clear the Fountain Valley encampment, many homeless people said they didn’t know where they would move. Social service workers said the action will simply push some people back to the streets of adjacent cities and force others to move to the already-crowded riverbed encampments in Anaheim and Orange, where neighbors and businesses also are complaining. 
 
 Editors note: A previous version of this story quoted the sheriff’s department as saying the bicycles were found near the Fountain Valley homeless encampment. OC Public Works later clarified that the bikes were found two miles northeast of the camp, just south of the river’s Fairview Street overpass in Santa Ana. This story has been updated to reflect that information.
– “It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before," Lt. Jeff Puckett of the Orange County Sheriff's Department tells the Orange County Register. Having removed between 150 and 200 homeless people from an encampment along the Santa Ana River in Southern California earlier this month, officials were clearing the camp when they discovered a trap door in the ground this week. According to the Los Angeles Times, the plywood door covered in dirt revealed a set of wooden steps that led to a 10-foot-by-10-foot room 6 feet underground. The room, which was empty, was supported by wood beams and tall enough to stand in. It's unclear who built it or what it was used for. "That someone had a whole downstairs living arrangement … it’s weird that they built it without us knowing,” says a woman living in a nearby condominium. That wasn't the only interesting discovery made by officials since they started clearing the camp earlier this month. More than 1,000 bicycles were found in a tunnel along the concrete river bed. “I’ve been doing this job for 20 years and even I was stunned by that one,” Puckett says. It's unclear how many of the bicycles were stolen, but Puckett says the public will likely get a chance to see if their missing bikes are among them. “Common sense would usually dictate if you have 1,000 bikes in a tunnel, some of them could be stolen,” Puckett says. Officials also found a .357 Magnum handgun with three empty shell casings in it near the camp. They are investigating where it came from. Homeless advocates say that by kicking the homeless people out of the encampment, the county is simply pushing the problem around instead of doing something to solve it.