LOS ANGELES – A man accused of steering a U-Haul truck toward a Los Angeles demonstration supporting Iran's protests was released after being arrested on suspicion of reckless driving and has yet to be formally charged, authorities said Monday.
Police first said one person was hit by truck during Sunday’s protest, but on Monday said no one was struck. Two people declined treatment after paramedics evaluated them at the scene, the fire department said.
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Messages were sent to the city attorney's office Monday asking about possible charges against the 48-year-old man. Police say he sped into the crowd of demonstrators, some waving Iran’s 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's home to the largest Iranian community outside the country.
Videos shared on social media show demonstrators scrambling out of the truck's 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’s side window.
Investigators searched the truck, “with nothing significant being found,” the police statement said.
Police said the protesters tore down a banner on the truck that read “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah,” an apparent reference to a U.S.-backed coup in that year which toppled then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the country’s oil industry. The coup cemented the shah's power and lit the fuse for the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which saw Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini usher in the theocracy that still governs the country.
From exile in the United States, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah who fled Iran just before the Islamic Revolution, has called on Iranians to join the demonstrations. Some Iranians have chanted pro-shah slogans, which were once punishable by death, highlighting the anger fueling demonstrations that began over Iran’s sanctions-crippled economy.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with military action over its crackdown on protesters in nationwide demonstrations that activists said Monday had left nearly 600 dead across the country.
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Associated Press journalists Julie Watson in San Diego and Michael Catalini in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.