Ah, the hard-knock life of a Los Angeles news crew.

Bloomberg photographer Jonathan Alcorn (who's got some stellar Dodgers shots on his personal blog, BTW) has perhaps a better story to tell today than the one he and five colleagues were commissioned to report — a piece on Hollywood paparazzi (so meta).

His Facebook is private, but L.A. media watchdog Kevin Roderick has kindly copy-pasted Alcorn's account of an LAPD mistaken-identity fiasco onto LA Observed; and WeHo Daily, also kindly, re-Tweeted a hilarious photo to supplement the anecdote.

The watch commander at the LAPD's Hollywood station says she has heard of no such incident. Good thing we've got a trusty social-media squad to fill in all the holes!

Here's the clip from Alcorn's Facebook:

Was just prone on the ground felony stop with about 10 guns pointed at me and a news crew. Felony stop mistaken identity shotguns helicopter. The whole deal.

Then, in response to commenters:

I'm not kidding. 5 of us. They thought we were armed robbers. Doing a story on paparazzis for Bloomberg.

Dude I was on the ground with guns and rifles pointed at me They were not playing. The concrete was hot too

We are all fine thanks

Roderick writes that the unlucky robber lookalikes “were stopped near Sunset Plaza this afternoon (presumably by sheriff's deputies),” but from the following photos, originally Tweeted by @BrittAliceJoe, who saw the whole thing from her window, we'd say the LAPD was definitely to blame:

law logo2x blaw logo2x bLooks like quite a scene. The BCBG public-relations girl made like a hard-hitting reporter on her Twitter feed:

law logo2x bWe'll let you know if the LAPD comes out and admits its fat “felony robber” fail this afternoon, but the proof is already plastered all over the web for our every scoffing pleasure, so it doesn't really matter either way. Good one, guys.

Update: WeHo Daily takes it easy on the LAPD, who reportedly had reason to believe the pack of journos was a gang of felons:

The crew happened to be driving around on Sunset Blvd. shortly after a robbery occurred in the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire Division. Apparently, LAPD became aware that the suspects were using credit cards obtained in the robbery on the Sunset Strip, so a police helicopter came to the area to search for the suspect vehicle.

In fact, the robbery suspects very well could have been in the area, as another robbery was reported on the 8900 block of Shoreham Dr. at almost the same time as the helicopter was searching. The suspects were described as two Hispanic males, in their 30′s, both unshaven, and driving a newer dark Yukon type vehicle. They used a semiautomatic black handgun to commit the robbery.

KTLA tries for a piece of the action, too. Though nobody can seem to spell Jonathan Alcorn's name right.

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]

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