FILMED GANG FIGHT FRIGHTENS REAL POLICE.Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer By all appearances, police had stumbled onto an explosive situation: about 25 rifle-toting gang members squaring off with shouts and shoves in a parking lot brawl. Patrol officers radioed for help and took up positions outside Victory Outreach Church on Saticoy Street. Then they rushed and held the combatants at gunpoint, only to find the ``gangsters'' were more Hollywood than hooligan. The actors, many of them former gang members, were filming a re-enactment of the negotiations of a 1993 peace treaty between San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. gangs. On Friday, a day after the misunderstanding, police commanders and organizers of the video met to find ways to avoid future mishaps. ``After it was over, a lot of the officers were standing around being very apologetic once they realized this was a positive situation,'' said Steve Martinez, a leader of The Valley Unit Peace Treaty. ``The cops have been real good to us,'' Martinez said. ``I'm learning so much from this about how important communication is.'' The incident began about 8:30 p.m. Thursday when two officers impounding im·pound tr.v. im·pound·ed, im·pound·ing, im·pounds 1. To confine in or as if in a pound: capture and impound stray dogs. 2. a car heard shouts coming from the church parking lot and saw what appeared to be a fight between gang members armed with assault rifles A
Martinez said the Las Vegas-based crew wanted to film a realistic gang-standoff so ex-gang members and activists wore baggy clothes and wielded firearms from the church's box of props. The intent of the faux fight was to promote peace through a television show called ``Solutions,'' he said. ``We were supposed to be coming in between two different gangs that were fighting and do some mediation between them to resolve the problem,'' Martinez said, describing the scene that police mistakenly believed was a real fight. ``I think the police probably overreacted, but with the stuff they deal with every day, I don't blame them. How would they know if those guns were real or not?'' he said. As it turned out, some of the guns were real and police seized a semiautomatic carbine carbine Light, short-barreled rifle. The first carbines, from the muzzle-loading muskets of the 18th century to the lever-action repeaters of the 19th, were chiefly cavalry weapons or saddle firearms for mounted frontiersmen. , three rifles, two revolvers, blank ammunition and a sawed-off shotgun Noun 1. sawed-off shotgun - a shotgun with short barrels scattergun, shotgun - firearm that is a double-barreled smoothbore shoulder weapon for firing shot at short ranges that had been reported stolen, Langsam said. One officer suffered a knee injury when one of the detained de·tain tr.v. de·tained, de·tain·ing, de·tains 1. To keep from proceeding; delay or retard. 2. To keep in custody or temporary confinement: actors, Eric Avelar, tried to break free, police said. Avelar was arrested on suspicion of battery on a police officer. The film's director, Robert Garfel, was arrested on suspicion of possessing a gun while on parole and another member of the cast was arrested on an outstanding warrant, Langsam said. Investigators said the Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. crew was cited for not having permits to film the re-enactment. The Rev. David Martinez
David Martinez Guzman is managing partner of Fintech Advisory, a firm that specializes in corporate and country debt. , pastor of the church and no relation to Steve Martinez, told police the guns had been stored at the church for the past five years and had been used in parks and other public places on many occasions to film re-enactments or make presentations in the church's crusade against gang-violence. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion