A collection of men seen storming a church in East Hollywood while holding large guns in a quiet neighborhood in Los Angeles caused a brief panic Monday afternoon with police racing to the scene to discover the scene was only a music video shoot.
"They're thinking it's the real deal. Based on everything that's occurred in the nation in the last week, we're going to take precautionary measures and of course treat this as though It was the real situation with suspect being armed," Officer Keith Green told Fox 11.
Police blocked off the area around Commonwealth and Santa Monica Blvd.
The Los Angeles Police Department said the AR-15s the men were carrying were replicas being used for a music video shoot. The video's producer says the rap group were actually shooting a Bengali music video.
"They're rap artists. They're local natives from this area. Set to do a music video today," said Peter Mandana.
However, one big problem was the fact that the video's director didn't apply for a permit for the shoot, so police weren't aware of what was happening. However, the artists insisted that they got some type of permit through a website, but they did not elaborate on what the permit or website was.
One of the people who was detained by police said their video shoot occurring just two days after a man stormed into a synagogue and killed 11 people was just "bad timing."
The director was arrested by the LAPD for the unauthorized music video shoot.
Photo: Getty Images