Pasadena police arrested a San Marino man who they said drove a pickup truck toward a crowd of protesters who were in the street on Sunday.
Benjamin Hung, 28, was released on bail after being booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He was arrested at around 5 p.m. Sunday, shortly after turning left from California Boulevard onto southbound Fair Oaks Avenue despite the presence of the protesters who were in the intersection, according to Lt. Bill Grisafe of the Pasadena Police Department.
The driver “was stopped immediately after,” Grisafe said. “Apparently he used some type of amplified sound device, a megaphone or something, to tell people to get out of his way. As he approached the crowd, he apparently gunned the truck and took off. He does come dangerously close to the crowd of protesters, but we’re not aware of anybody that was struck.”
Grisafe said that officers found a loaded handgun in the truck and that the weapon — which was not registered to Hung — was not secured in a lockbox as required. When he is arraigned — courts are closed for most arraignments during the pandemic — the suspect could face charges in connection with the firearm, Grisafe said.
A cellphone video of the incident circulated on Twitter among participants of the protest, which was among countless events held nationwide in response to the death last week of George Floyd while he was being arrested by four Minneapolis police officers for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill.
In the five-second video, a white Dodge pickup truck is shown accelerating into the turn, its brake lights appearing to flash only once, as pedestrians panic and run out of the way. Three large flags were mounted in the truck bed — the Betsy Ross American flag, a “Thin Blue Line” American flag and the Gadsden flag, which depicts a coiled snake and features the words “Don’t Tread on Me.”
The truck is registered to Hung, according to Grisafe, and has Oregon license plates.
Another motorist also was arrested in a nearly simultaneous incident in which police said he suddenly accelerated his Lexus sedan as two groups of people surrounded his car — one seeming to attack the vehicle and another apparently trying to defuse the situation. One man briefly was on the hood of the car as it launched down the street, but he jumped off when the vehicle was stopped by officers and refused medical attention, Grisafe said. The driver was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
An attorney with Los Angeles-based Byrne & Nixon who is representing Hung did not return a phone call before press time.
Local Man Arrested at Pasadena Protest
