CALABASAS — A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department search team cornered a rifle-wielding man in Malibu Creek State Park on Wednesday who they believe committed a series of burglaries nearby over the last two years.

.@LACoSheriff announcing the arrest of 42 yr old suspect Anthony Rauda who is possibly linked to several recent burglaries in the Malibu Canyon area. The suspect was armed with a rifle & was located approx 1 mile from North Mulholland/West of Las Virgenes Rd. @LASDHQ @LHSLASD pic.twitter.com/ET1h0lmcrM — Nicole Nishida (@lasdNicole) October 11, 2018

Sheriff Jim McDonnell said the team that morning was trying to track down the man seen in security camera footage carrying a gun while burglarizing a commercial building north of the wilderness park on Sept. 30.

After several hours, the searchers found a trail of boot prints. They follwed the trail up a steep ravine, then encountered 42-year-old Anthony Rauda, who they said was attempting to hide behind some bushes.

As he tried to quickly walk away, the team surrounded Rauda. That’s when they saw he was clutching a rifle, McDonnell said. After a brief standoff, searchers convinced the man to drop the weapon and surrender.

The sheriff said the search for the armed suspect in the area of thick woods — about one mile north of Mulholland Highway and west of Las Virgenes Road in the middle of the state park — presented serious dangers to the team of deputies and detectives.

“They put themselves in harm’s way,” McDonnell said. “The individual they pursued was very familiar with that wooded area. He could have threatened those detectives.”

Speaking at the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles late on Wednesday, officials offered few details about Rauda, who was being booked at the Lost Hills-Malibu station on a parole violation.

McDonnell said Rauda had a criminal history that included burglaries and weapons violations. But he did not know the man’s last known address. And he couldn’t say for sure how long the man had apparently been hiding in the park, or whether detectives believed Rauda was living in the woods during the entire two-year period when the burglaries were occurring.

The most recent burglaries was reported at the Agoura Hill-Calabasas community center at 27040 Malibu Hills Road.

At around 3 a.m. on Tuesday, a burglary suspect smashed the center’s glass door, then broke into a vending machine and stole food. The report sparked concerns that the crime was committed by the same rifle-toting burglar spotted in the area last week.

Lt. Ed Hernandez of the sheriff’s Major Crimes Bureau said it was not clear yet how many crimes Rauda could be connected to, and he asked local residents shaken by recent events to remain vigilant.

“The community still should call us if they see something out of the ordinary,” Hernandez said.

Detectives said they were looking at as many as nine burglaries, most involving a suspect stealing food out of vending machines, going back to 2016.

The first two burglaries occurred that year, on Oct. 10, 2016 in the 26800 block of Dorothy Drive in an unincorporated county area, and another on Oct. 28, 2016 a few miles north of Malibu Creek State Park in Calabasas.

About five months later on March 8, 2017, another burglary was reported in the 26800 block of Mulholland Highway at a building at Anza Public Park in Calabasas. There were no more burglaries that year matching the same description.

The next similar burglary occurred more than one year later on July 27, with the suspect hitting the Agoura Hills-Calabasas community center for the first time.

More burglaries followed in September, with one reported on Sept. 24 in the 700 block of Malibu Canyon Road. Another was reported on Sept. 30 in the 26800 block of Mulholland Highway; in that burglary, detectives said surveillance camera footage caught a man matching Rauda’s description who was wearing “tactical gear” and touting a rifle.

By the most recent burglaries on Oct. 4 and Tuesday morning, detectives had begun to narrow down the area they believed the suspect may have been in. Several expansive searches followed.

On Saturday, a sighting of a man by a maintenance worker in Tapia park about a mile south of the main campground at Malibu Creek State Park also prompted a search. The worker said the man had asked for a ride away from the area. But Hernandez said on Wednesday that they determined that man was not their suspect, and was likely a hiker in the area.

The break-ins and searches heightened fear among residents already on edge following the June 22 shooting death of 35-year-old Irvine resident Tristan Beaudette, who was killed in his tent at Malibu Creek State Park, where he was camping with his two daughters.

Sheriff’s officials also later confirmed that Beaudette’s death led them to look at a series of nonfatal shootings in the area of the park since late 2016 that were not previously reported to the public.

At a community meeting on park land in August, sheriff’s homicide detectives said they had no evidence that any of the shootings were connected to each other. On Wednesday, McDonnell again said detectives had not linked the burglaries to the shootings either.

Sheriff’s detectives on Wednesday were seen removing bags of items from an area of the park. Officials would not say whether they believed the items belonged to Rauda. McDonnell also would not say whether the man had anything else in his possession at the time of his arrest besides the weapon.

Hernandez said Rauda was wearing a black athletic shirt when detectives found him. He did not appear to be wearing the tactical gear the suspect was seen wearing in surveillance footage.

Also speaking in downtown L.A. on Wednesday, state Sen. Henry Stern, who represents Calabasas, Malibu and other communities in the area, said whether or not Rauda ended up being the shooting suspect, he was still pleased to see an arrest in the series of burglaries.

“This guy had a rifle,” he said. “That’s a bad dude.”

Still, with the arrest, Stern said he was hopeful sheriff’s detectives had found the person responsible for the area’s uncharacteristic spate of violence.

“It’s a good lead. It’s a damn good lead,” he said. “There’s a lot of hope. It could be unfounded, but there’s going to dig and investigate this.”