The LAPD officer was southbound on the freeway when his motorcycle was rear-ended, said CHP Officer Josh Greengard of the Newhall Area office. The men carried “assault- type gear”, and officers monitored their activity but took no action for the safety of several bystanders watching, according to Lt. Greg Held of the Inglewood Police Department. Those two weapons were handguns, police said.
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Video from the scene showed the men walking around in camouflage, carrying rifles and shouting messages about racism. Nobody’s being shot. Nobody’s being brutalized. “We’re out here just exposing racism, white supremacy”, one of the men told KTLA. He mentioned if the police tried to take their guns away, it would “show how phony they are”. “Ain’t nobody been hurt”.
After seeing the video of the men “with what appeared to be assault rifles, body armor, and Kevlar helmets”, officials chose to detain and question them, LAPD Deputy Chief Bob Green told reporters.
Police say a motorcycle officer pulled over a sedan on Century Boulevard at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, then shot a passenger who got out of the vehicle. Detectives will try to determine what the pair’s intentions were and whether their guns were legal, Green said.
Green said police followed the men’s vehicle to Foothill Boulevard and Terra Bella Street, where the vehicle stopped shortly before 7 a.m. Police also kept an eye on the two men on foot and by helicopter as they walked through the city. LAPD officer Mike Lopez said that the police obtained a search warrant “for a Panorama City apartment where one of the men lives and found two assault rifles similar to the weapons earlier reported in Inglewood”.
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The driver of the sedan, whose gender and approximate age have not been disclosed, drove off and remains at large.
