Police stormed a Los Angeles building Friday evening and shot a suspect in a dramatic hostage situation that was caught on camera.
Videos posted to Twitter show police swarming a ten-story building in downtown LA where an armed suspect had barricaded themselves with a hostage, cops told The Los Angeles Times.
A man wearing white could be seen through large windows pointing a gun to someone’s head as they kneeled down, before he dragged the person to a different area of the unit, footage apparently captured from a building across the street showed.
Shortly after, several loud apparent flash-bangs can be heard as the man runs to a different room.
As the blasts continue, the man is seen grabbing the person again and moving out of sight as SWAT team officers swarm the area and gunshots ring out.
An officer shot the suspect, who was hospitalized in unknown condition, an LAPD spokesman told the paper. The hostage was alive and no officers were injured.
It’s not clear what led up to the incident, but police responded to a shooting in the area at 4:10 p.m., an hour and a half before the standoff, according to the newspaper.
The incident happened eight blocks away from a Wednesday night hostage situation, where police shot a woman who emerged from a tent holding a person at gunpoint, KTLA reported.
Both incidents are near the city’s Skid Row district, which is known for high rates of crime and thousands of people living on the street.
City officials have attempted to attract a new class of residents to the area in recent years, according to reports.
“Active crime scene right outside my building for the 3rd time in 3 months. DTLA is a joke I’ll never live here again. What good is a luxury apartment in hell?,” one person tweeted.