DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Way back on April 23rd there was a show at Transport Gallery called "Mark of the Beast." Days afterward the story started to come out that the show had been forced to shut down by LAPD. Everything I heard seemed to be third-hand, though, so it was hard to know what to think. Valerie from blogging.la finally spoke to the owner of the gallery, and reports his side of the story.

Some say that four police cars pulled up at 10:40 on the night of the 23rd, others say there were six cars, but one thing is certain: The officer told Mike he had no choice but to shut the place down due to a call they had received from an unnamed individual complaining that the art being shown that evening was offensive and aggressive in nature. Apparently, calling in such a complaint is every citizen’s right, but it is the LAPD’s decision how to respond to it, which makes Mike wonder if the complaint was from someone with clout, someone important. ... Intimidated by the uniforms and the fact that there were men with guns in his gallery, Mike ran around and shut everything down, pulled all the plugs and told everyone to go home, something he regretted the next day.

It's still weird to see this story developing so long after the events happened, but it's something to keep an eye on.

Update (May 20th): It was basically a week ago that Sean pointed out to me that it was Valerie who spoke to the gallery owner, not Caryn. He also found a typo in my write-up. I thought I had fixed them then, but I guess I didn't. They're fixed now.