Traffic was shut down and a SWAT team was dispatched to Glendale Monday morning after a Metro bus driver found a passenger sleeping with a gun.
Bus drivers were changing shifts at San Fernando and West Los Feliz streets around 9:44 a.m. when one of them “saw a gun in the waistband of a sleeping passenger” and notified police, Metro officials said. Glendale police arrived within minutes and escorted other passengers off the bus while Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies took the armed passenger into custody, said Sgt. Vahe Abramyan, a public information officer with the Glendale Police Department.
The intersection was reopened at noon.
In a statement thanking the bus driver, Metro reminded the public that its policies “strictly prohibit carrying dangerous weapons on the Metro system, whether concealed or open.”
This isn't the first time police have had to respond to a report of a sleeping subway passenger carrying a gun. Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department used its controversial robot dog to communicate with a passenger who had fallen asleep with a suspected firearm. In that case, it turned out to be a BB gun.
Staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.
