Man held in paintball gun attack on LAPD officers

A Boyle Heights man was arrested Monday night after authorities said he unloaded a barrage of paintballs at two police officers who were in the area investigating a domestic dispute.

The encounter began about 9:40 p.m. in the 3100 block of Fairmount Street when two officers from the LAPD’s Hollenbeck division were dispatched to a home to investigate a child-custody dispute, Sgt. John Porras said.

As the officers began talking with a resident outside the person’s home, it “pretty much rained paintballs around the officers’ location,” Porras said.

“It was actually the witness who saw him. He stated ‘Hey, that guy’s shooting paintballs at us,’” Porras said.

Neither the officers nor the resident were hit.

The officers went to the apartment where the witness reporting seeing the shooter and found one resident with a paintball gun resembling an AR-15 assault rifle and paintballs matching the color of the ones that were fired on the officers, Porras said.

“I talked to him briefly when he came in and he didn’t seem intoxicated or anything,” Porras said. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”

The man, identified only as being 25 years old, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Porras said.

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