Man who allegedly brandished gun, assaulted McDonald’s employee identified
Sheriff’s detectives have confirmed the man they suspect of brandishing a firearm at Flint Canyon Tennis Club Monday was the same person they say committed battery against a McDonald’s employee Wednesday before being found at Hahamongna Park with a gun and prescription drugs.
Det. Rodger Burt of the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station said deputies on Wednesday afternoon took 38-year-old Dennis Snowden of Los Angeles into custody and booked him on suspicion of battery, brandishing a firearm and being in possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of school grounds. On Friday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office filed charges for all three crimes, the last of which is a felony.
Snowden allegedly pulled into the Flint Canyon Tennis Club sometime around 2 p.m. Monday and was sitting inside a silver Mercedes sedan when he was approached by an employee of the club.
“He was smoking pot on the property, and an employee had gone up to him and told him to leave and not to smoke,” Burt said Thursday. “He lifted up his shirt and showed her the firearm. It made the employee feel fearful of her safety.”
The suspect was not seen again until around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, when he allegedly threw food at an employee in the drive-through window of the McDonald’s on Foothill Boulevard. That act constituted battery and provided video footage detectives needed to link the man and the vehicle to Monday’s incident, according to Burt.
“He was on video at McDonald’s, so we were able to see that was the same person,” he said.
Snowden was later seen at around 3:40 p.m. in a vehicle parked in the upper parking lot of Hahamongna Watershed Park across the street from La Cañada High School, less than 1 mile away from the tennis club and the McDonald’s.
Community service officer Aaron Viteri reported the man’s presence to the station, and deputies responded on scene and eventually detained him. Snowden was still being held at the Crescenta Valley Station Thursday afternoon, the detective confirmed.
Little is known about his motives, however, or what he did in between the incidents. Burt said Snowden was uncooperative and not speaking to sheriff’s personnel.
The detective did confirm that the handgun retrieved from the vehicle was registered to Snowden. It is also believed the vehicle belonged to him.
