A disgruntled “local street vendor” was arrested on a drug cost three days after the Baltimore manufacturing of the Apple TV+ series “Lady in the Lake” was shut down by an alleged threat of violence, police stated Tuesday.
Keith Brown, 43, of Pikesville, Maryland, was taken into custody Monday after police noticed him promoting medicine, police spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge stated in an e mail to NBC News. He advised police that he had spoken with a crew member and a safety supervisor for the miniseries Friday about being reimbursed as a result of he could not “operate his clothing business” whereas they had been filming on that street, Baltimore police stated in a press release.
Brown was apparently “upset that he had not been compensated by the production for lost business” and advised police he was ready to get paperwork from the crew members that he might file to obtain a reimbursement, the assertion learn.
Police are nonetheless investigating the allegation, and it isn’t clear whether or not or not Brown made any threat of violence to the crew. The alleged threat prompted the producers to shut down manufacturing of the present, which stars Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram, and transfer the filming from downtown Baltimore to an undisclosed location the place it resumed a day later.
NBC affiliate WBAL of Baltimore reported Monday that police had been investigating doable discrepancies in the story and stated they’re nonetheless interviewing different witnesses about the threat on the set.
“This is still an open and ongoing investigation,” Eldridge stated in a press release.
The chain of occasions that resulted in Brown being arrested started round 4 p.m. Friday when police “received a report concerning a crew member on the set of the Endeavor Content production ‘Lady in the Lake’ in the 200 block of Park Avenue,” in accordance with the police incident report.
“Preliminary information reported that a crew member had received a verbal threat of violence from an individual, who he alleged also brandished a firearm,” Eldridge stated in the assertion. “At that time, filming was halted out of an abundance of caution.”
In the incident report supplied by police, one officer spoke with an unidentified male crew member who reported that “individuals demanded that he pay $50,000 US currency in order to film at the location (200 Park Avenue) and that they pulled a gun and brandished it at the workers.”
But when requested if he himself noticed the gun, the crew member “retracted his original statement of seeing the gun” and stated one in all the crew’s drivers had seen the weapon, in accordance with the incident report.
However, the crew member did direct the officer to a close-by nook the place he stated drug sellers had been promoting marijuana.
The identical officer additionally spoke with a girl “who was identified as the supervisor for the security firm working with the film crew” and he or she stated “that a group of people wanted $4,000 for the film crew to be able to film in the area and then changed the amount to $50,000.”
The unnamed lady “explained that the group threatened to shoot in the air unless they received the money,” the incident report acknowledged.
“Lady in the Lake” filming started in April and is predicted to proceed by means of the fall. The series, which takes place in Baltimore in 1966, is customized from native writer Laura Lippman’s novel of the identical identify. The series additionally options Y’lan Noel, Mikey Madison and Brett Gelman.
In the aftermath of Friday’s alleged incident, the Baltimore mayor’s press workplace issued a press release saying, “Mayor [Brandon] Scott has connected with the film company and assured them that he, along with BPD, remains focused on efforts to build public safety.”