Drama starts at courthouse, ends at hospital, with brawls, a shooting, arrests, injuries in between
A brawl in Lancaster Tuesday morning spiraled into an extended drama that spanned several locations and included a shooting, six arrests, a scuffle with members of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and a series of minor injuries, according to officials.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported an initial dispute among a group of unidentified people at the Antelope Valley Courthouse around 9:30 a.m.
Parties from that incident traveled a half-mile down the road from Lancaster to a gas station just across the border in Palmdale, according to Sgt. Adam Hilzendeger, acting watch commander of the sheriff’s Lancaster station.
There, a shooting took place at about 10 a.m., and two unidentified female victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to Hilzendeger. No deputies were involved in the shooting.
Lancaster, which has never had its own police department, will hire eight ‘peace officers’ to help L.A. County sheriff’s deputies respond to crimes.
It’s unknown at this point what caused the dispute, according to officials.
Deputies from the nearby Palmdale sheriff’s station arrested six suspects, according to Hilzendeger, and discovered a cache of weapons inside their vehicles.
Several members of the group drove to the Antelope Valley Medical Center to seek care for the wounded.
As sheriff’s deputies arrived at the medical center and started an investigation into the earlier shooting, some group members “became unruly,” according to sheriff’s reports. Some began yelling at law enforcement and eventually assaulted at least one deputy as arrests were being made.
Federal authorities have already visited the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department headquarters to get records needed for the investigations.
During this altercation, several more people suffered minor injuries, including at least one deputy. All were treated at the adjacent medical center and released, according to officials.
The Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident.
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