SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO AM) Two stolen guns have been found stashed up in a pine tree in western Sioux Falls, and a third gun was leaning up against the tree.
Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead looks at it as a ripple effect from the Meth epidemic.
"People on Meth breaking into homes, stealing guns and then deciding that the best place to hide the guns is in a tree in somebody's yard they didn't know and the guns were found by a young child getting ready to go to school," says Milstead.
A fourth weapon was found in a house. The guns were stolen during a string of burglaries this week. Two men were arrested on Monday. Authorities say both had drugs on them. Then three more were arrested, one of whom had drug needles hidden in his stocking cap.
If not for a sharp-eyed child, the guns would still be up in that tree near 26th Street and Valley View Road.
"Who knows how long they would have stayed up there? The next snowstorm? I don't know, until somebody else looked up in the tree," says Sgt. Jason Gearman with the Minnehaha County Sheriff's Department.