Twitter executive live-tweets and live-streams SWAT standoff outside his L.A. home

Dylan Stableford
·Senior Writer
A standoff between police and a suspect played out in real time for a Twitter executive. (@NathanCHubbard)
A standoff between police and a suspect played out in real time for a Twitter executive. (@NathanCHubbard)

People who live in Los Angeles are used to watching police pursuits live on television — they just usually aren’t able to watch them from their bedroom window.

But that was precisely the case for Nathan Hubbard early Monday, when a SWAT team rolled into his Pacific Palisades neighborhood in pursuit of a male suspect who crashed a stolen car, fired on police and then holed up in his neighbor’s garage.

Hubbard, a Twitter executive, and his family had just returned home from a family trip from Africa when he heard gunshots outside his daughter’s window around 2:00 a.m. local time.

And Hubbard promptly began live-tweeting and streaming the standoff on Twitter and Periscope.


According to Hubbard, he heard a car crash with police helicopters overhead, then two sets of gunshots.


Hubbard also posted footage from an outdoor security camera attached to his home of a man believed to be the suspect running up the street.


According to Hubbard, his neighbors sent him a direct message saying they were not home and were following his Twitter feed for updates.


Hubbard even tweeted part of the SWAT team’s attempted negotiation with the suspect, whom he said police identified as “Carl.”


Hubbard paused to give his neighbors some advice.


At one point, members of the tactical unit outside his window motioned to him to stop filming.

“SWAT team is less than happy with the film job,” Hubbard told his Periscope audience. “They’re pissed at me for filming this.”

But according to Hubbard, his block was “mostly locked down.”

“My kids are loving this as an excuse to potentially not get to school on time,” he said.

Hubbard, Twitter’s head of global media and commerce, even got in a plug for his company’s live-streaming app.

“I got a feeling Carl is not on Periscope right now,” Hubbard said. “He should be — everybody should be.”


An LAPD spokesman confirmed to Yahoo News that police were in pursuit of a stolen car when the suspect opened fire and fled on foot.

The tactical team used a battering ram to open the garage door and arrested the man shortly before 8 a.m. And Hubbard caught it all live on Periscope.

 

Hubbard told Yahoo News that his kids did eventually make it to school.

"Just a couple minutes late," he wrote in a Twitter message.

There was, however, one lingering mystery for Hubbard.