LOS ANGELES \u2014 A man accused of steering a U-Haul truck toward a Los Angeles demonstration supporting Iran\u2019s protests was released after being arrested on suspicion of reckless driving and has yet to be formally charged, authorities said Monday.<\/p>\n
Police first said one person was hit by truck during Sunday\u2019s protest, but on Monday said no one was struck. Two people declined treatment after paramedics evaluated them at the scene, the fire department said.<\/p>\n
Messages were sent to the city attorney\u2019s office Monday asking about possible charges against the 48-year-old man. Police say he sped into the crowd of demonstrators, some waving Iran\u2019s lion and sun flag, an emblem of its former ruler, the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The protesters gathered Sunday afternoon in Westwood, a neighborhood that\u2019s home to the largest Iranian community outside the country.<\/p>\n
Videos shared on social media show demonstrators scrambling out of the truck\u2019s way while a few chase after it. The vehicle stopped several blocks away, its windshield, mirrors and a window shattered. ABC7 news helicopter footage showed police officers keeping the crowd at bay while demonstrators swarmed the truck, throwing punches at the driver and thrusting flagpoles through the driver\u2019s side window.<\/p>\n
Investigators searched the truck, \u201cwith nothing significant being found,\u201d the police statement said.<\/p>\n
Police said the protesters tore down a banner on the truck that read \u201cNo Shah. No Regime. USA: Don\u2019t Repeat 1953. No Mullah,\u201d an apparent reference to a US-backed coup in that year which toppled then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the country\u2019s oil industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 A man accused of steering a U-Haul truck toward a Los Angeles demonstration supporting Iran\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[67560,19378,48,52,51,68703,47,50,49,66897,68702,13,7361,67561],"class_list":["post-134533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-freedom-of-assembly","tag-iran","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lion-and-sun","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mohammad-reza-pahlavi","tag-pahlavi-dynasty","tag-politics","tag-protests","tag-social-conflict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}