Music video kidnapping leads to real response by LA County deputies

If art really does imitate life, it may be best in certain instances to make clear which is taking place.

That idea was reflected in a post the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shared on Facebook on Friday night.

The department’s San Dimas station got a call on Wednesday about a possible kidnapping along Highway 39 in the San Gabriel Mountains, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

The caller said he saw two people pointing a gun at another person whose hands were duct-taped near a black BMW sedan.

It was a call that deputies took seriously, Sgt. Michael McGrattan of the Sheriff’s Department said in an interview Friday night.

“Typically on a call like that, we would send multiple deputies,” he said. “That’s actually a remote location up in the mountains. Up in the mountains there, we actually from time to time, we have bodies dumped, we have had shootings, we have had murders.”

Deputies proceeded with caution, he said, and conducted what the agency called a “high-risk” traffic stop on the car. They found three men and detained them, according to the Facebook post.

Deputy Ed Luna said in an interview Friday night that all three men were interviewed separately, and that their stories matched. But it was not a kidnapping - at least not a real one.

“It turns out they were filming a music video,” McGrattan said. “They were enacting a kidnapping, so to speak.”

But they had a real gun, he said. One of the men was charged with a misdemeanor for openly carrying an unloaded firearm in a vehicle, he said.

In its Facebook post, the department offered some practical advice: If anyone is filming a music video in the mountains, do not pretend to kidnap and duct-tape someone and use a real gun. At least not without telling authorities.

“That way we can at least pass by or make sure if anyone calls on it, let them know it’s just a movie shoot,” Luna said.

The Facebook post concluded: “Mental note: book a place to film your music video! Maybe advise the cops first?!”