After St. Paul police officers heard at least 10 rapid gunshots, they pulled a car over and found the driver wearing a ski mask and bullet-proof vest.

Plus, there were three guns hidden in the car, according to police. Officers arrested three men in the car on suspicion of illegal gun possession on Wednesday.

St. Paul officers regularly recover stolen guns or find people with guns when they’re not legally permitted to have them.

But incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday were out of the ordinary, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

On Tuesday night, when a driver fled officers, police found a machine gun-style firearm and a pistol in the vehicle, according to the criminal complaint. Three additional weapons — including AR-15 and AK-47 rifles — were found along the driver’s route.

“It is unusual, both with the number of guns and the type of weapons that were recovered being very dangerous,” Ernster said. “Our officers did a great job in confronting the suspects — no force was used in either arrest — and getting these weapons off the street.”

THREE STOLEN GUNS HIDDEN IN CAR

At 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, officers at Minnehaha Avenue and Dale Street heard multiple gunshots and then saw a silver Audi sedan run a stop stop at Minnehaha and Arundel Street, according to a police report.

Police pulled over the car and saw the driver, 20-year-old Brandon Deshone Johnson, wearing a ski mask and bullet-proof vest, Ernster said.

Officers found three guns hidden in the car’s sunroof area and a check of their serial numbers showed they had been reported stolen.

Police also found an empty shell casing on the car’s trunk and they are investigating whether the men in the car were connected to an incident of shots fired.

A home on Lafond Avenue, near Dale Street, was struck by a bullet, which didn’t appear to go in the house, Ernster said. No one was injured.

Through mid-March, reports of shots fired were down 16 percent in St. Paul, compared with the same period last year. But recent days have been busy for police with gunfire reports.

After Wednesday’s traffic stop, officers arrested Deante Andre Kennebrew, of St. Paul; Cartrell Turner, of Woodbury; and Johnson, of Eagan, on suspicion of possession of stolen property.

Turner and Johnson, both 20, also were arrested for possession of a firearm by an ineligible person; state law requires people to be at least 21 to obtain a permit to carry a gun.

Kennebrew, 27, was booked into the Ramsey County jail on suspicion of firearm possession by a felon.

FIVE GUNS FOUND AFTER DRIVER FLEES FROM POLICE

About six hours earlier, police responded in the North End Tuesday on a report of people in a parked silver Jeep playing loud music and smoking marijuana for nearly an hour.

As an officer talked to people in the Jeep on Stinson Street, near Mackubin Street, at about 7:15 p.m. Tuesday, the driver became upset and sped away, Ernster said.

Police were on the lookout for the Jeep, and an officer in the Summit-University area spotted it at St. Anthony Avenue and Dale Street. As the squad approached, the Jeep drove between vehicles waiting at the stoplight and struck both of them, Ernster said.

The driver fled on Dale Street, Iglehart Avenue and Kent Street before officers lost sight of the Jeep. It was found crashed at Western Avenue and Holly Street, and police arrested the driver, Lavelle Darvon Brown, 27, of South St. Paul, and a 28-year-old female passenger.

An MP 40 machine gun-style firearm and several boxes of ammunition in different calibers, along with a gun safe, were under the driver’s seat. A .45-caliber pistol, magazine and box of ammunition were inside the safe, according to the criminal complaint filed Thursday against Brown.

While officers were at the scene, a man called 911 to report seeing a weapon in the road at Dale Street and Iglehart Avenue. Police found an AK-47 rifle with a pistol grip, Ernster said.

Officers reviewed squad camera footage and it showed the AK-47 being thrown from the vehicle, the complaint said.

Another man called police to report finding a Louis Vuitton bag on his front steps at Holly Avenue and Mackubin Street, also along the Jeep’s route. Inside the bag was a .45-caliber handgun and several magazines with bullets. Officers also found a small bag of white powder, suspected to be cocaine, the complaint said.

Police canvassing the area later recovered an AR-15 in the road at Kent Street and Marshall Avenue.

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The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Brown with two counts of possession of ammunition or a firearm by a felon.

He is barred from having guns or ammunition because of three felony domestic assault convictions in 2010 and 2011, and a juvenile case for third-degree assault, according to the complaint. He also pleaded guilty in 2016 to being a felon in possession of a gun.

Prosecutors declined to charge the woman in the Jeep because there was not evidence to prove felony-level charges, according to a Ramsey County attorney’s office spokesman.