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Glendora police nearly fire on film crew shooting armed robbery scene
Glendora police narrowly avoided firing on the cast of a film set Wednesday after receiving "frantic" reports of an armed robbery.
All on-duty Glendora officers responded to the Classic Coffee cafe on North Glendora Avenue at around 7:19 a.m. Thursday, police said. There, they saw masked men toting an assault rifle and a handgun and ordering would-be patrons around.
Turns out the robbery was a scene being filmed by a freelance film crew with false guns and costumes.
Glendora Police Lieutenant Matt Williams said the crew was extremely lucky the incident didn't escalate further.
"Officers arrived in force and saw two suspects with hooded sweatshirts, bandana masks, black gloves and were armed with realistic handguns, including an AR-15 assault rifle," Williams said. "One of the suspects dropped his gun, and officers immediately recognized that the gun didn't sound like a real gun when it hit the floor."
Police said the fake guns didn't have the required orange tips or other markings that would have let officers distinguish them as false. The cafe manager gave crews permission to film, but didn't notify police of the filming.
Despite that, the manager will not face any penalties for the incident, Williams said.
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