The man is accused of seizing a Los Angeles Metro bus at gunpoint in South Los Angeles, taking the driver and passenger hostage and killing another passenger, and was previously charged with transporting or selling a controlled substance. He was serving time in state prison, records and officials confirmed Thursday.
Lamont A. Campbell was arrested Wednesday by LAPD SWAT officers after an overnight standoff and pursuit in which a bus passenger was shot multiple times by Campbell, police said.
Campbell was being held without bail and was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Monday, according to jail records.
As of Thursday afternoon, no criminal charges had been filed in the busjacking incident.
Authorities have not released the names or ages of those killed during the ordeal.
Campbell, 51, began serving a five-year sentence in August 1996 for transporting or selling a controlled substance and was released on parole in 1998, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Campbell returned to prison in January 2010 on a prior conviction for transporting or selling a controlled substance, serving a six-year sentence and was released on parole in 2011.
He was released from parole supervision the following year.
Campbell pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drug possession charge in 2018 and was sentenced to three years’ probation, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records.
Los Angeles Police Department officials say officers responding to a shots fired call near Figueroa and West 119th Street early Wednesday morning found a man, later identified as Campbell, riding a Metro bus.
The bus driver was forced to drive through downtown at gunpoint and stopped after running over a spike strip near 6th Avenue and Alameda Street, where members of the Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team burst into the bus. The driver was rescued and Campbell was arrested.
