After seriously disrupting Los Angeles rush hour traffic with a 2018 publicity stunt, an aspiring rapper and musician appeared on A&E. My strange arrest To discuss what was going through his mind during the freak incident.
Alexander Dunn – from He goes by the stage name Dephree He said during an interview on the show that he was living and making music in Los Angeles when he was 29 years old in 2018, but was struggling because he “couldn’t get any traction in the rap game.”
But then he and a friend had an idea while driving on Highway 405: Dan was climbing a giant highway sign so he could make his mark and get attention. And sure enough, early one morning he nervously arrived at a sign on Interstate 110 near downtown Los Angeles with a ladder in the back of his truck.
This Indiana native, dressed in nothing but his underwear, climbed the banner armed with a megaphone and two handmade banners. One of them had to draw “Devery” and the other had to say “fight pollution not each other”, which was also one of the things he was saying on the megaphone. Dunn describes himself as an environmental advocate.
Emergency crews arrived and quickly set up giant inflatable pillows under the sign. Dan said they even brought in a hostage negotiator to talk to him from the ground. In a clip shown on the show, Dan can be heard responding, “I love you man, and I love police officers.”
And while the police climbed in and closed in on him, Dan climbed even higher.
“At this point, all nerves are gone. I’m the one with the highway sign and I’m here to make my stand,” he said.
Dunn eventually told the police that he would only come down voluntarily if they let him do a backflip on the inflatable pillow. They tried to stop the idea, but Dan eventually did it anyway.
Once on the ground, Dan was taken away in handcuffs and on a stretcher, and ended up in jail still wearing only his underwear. The accident caused a major traffic jam for about two hours, after which Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Foer was present He promised in a statement That Dan will be held accountable for his reckless and selfish actions.
Dan was formally charged with resisting arrest, public nuisance or committing two counts of trespassing, failure to comply with a lawful order, and failure to obey a cue or cue by a pedestrian.
He pleaded no contest to or committed public nuisance, one count of trespassing and failure to comply with a lawful order while the other charges were dropped. He was sentenced to 90 days in the Los Angeles County Jail, 36 months of probation, eight days of community service, and ordered to pay $14,000 in damages and fines.
Dan was released after three days due to overcrowding, and was eventually transferred to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he is staying. He is still part of the hip hop community. And while the publicity stunt may not have brought all the fame and fortune he had hoped for, at least Dan can always say he negotiated and did a backflip off a Los Angeles freeway sign.
“It was a pretty good backflip, I give it an eight. I almost missed the pillow, and I hit the corner of the pillow,” Dan said. “But it was like falling on the pillows, man.”
My strange arrest It airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m A & E.