A road rage incident in Irvine, California ended with a man in handcuffs, a handgun on the hood of his pickup truck. and an Irvine Police Department drone overhead. The driver had been spotted by an officer with the drone’s help. Police said the arrested driver had pointed a gun at another motorist at a traffic light.
According to Irvine police, the encounter began when the driver of a Toyota Tacoma cut in front of another car and hit the brakes. The other driver was able to get around the Tacoma, but police said the Tacoma driver followed them. When both vehicles stopped at a traffic light, the Tacoma driver allegedly pointed a gun at the other motorist.
The gun-pointing itself was not captured on camera. What was captured was what happened next. An Irvine Police Department drone, part of the agency’s Drone as First Responder program, tracked the white Tacoma from above as officers searched for the truck on the ground.
A motorcycle officer found the Tacoma with help from the drone, body camera video shows. The driver was pulled from the vehicle and handcuffed at the roadside. Police then displayed a black handgun on the hood of the Tacoma after searching the truck.
How the Drone Helped Police
View this post on Instagram
According to the Irvine Police Department, the confrontation began near the intersection of Jamboree Road and Main Street in Irvine when the driver of a Toyota Tacoma cut in front of another car and hit the brakes. The other driver was able to get around the truck, police said, but the Tacoma driver followed them. When the two vehicles stopped at a traffic light, the driver of the Tacoma allegedly pointed a gun at the other motorist.
Irvine Police Department drone footage shared with the body cam clip shows a white Toyota Tacoma being tracked from the air on a sunny, tree-lined road, with sidewalks, bike lanes and neighborhood traffic visible below. The drone is part of the department’s Drone as First Responder program, which the agency has said is intended to give officers information from the air during incidents where time matters.
According to police, a motorcycle officer was directed to the area and located the suspect vehicle with the drone’s help.
The Arrest and Charges
In the body camera footage, the motorcycle officer can be seen pulling up alongside the white Tacoma on the roadway, with the driver’s window open. The officer approached from the side and the driver’s arm came out of the window as the officer moved in close.
The drone footage then briefly returned from above, showing the Tacoma stopped in the road with police vehicles converging around it. Officers removed the driver, a man in a gray T-shirt, from the truck, turned him toward the vehicle, brought his hands behind his back and secured him in handcuffs at the side of the road. After officers searched the Tacoma, a black handgun was displayed on the hood of the truck.
Police identified the arrested driver as Brian Sunki Oh, 44, of Irvine, according to Patch. Oh was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. Patch, citing Orange County jail records, reported that Oh was booked into the Orange County Sheriff’s Department by Irvine police at about 6:30 p.m. on May 14 and was released on May 30.