By
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - A police officer from another city, apparently unhappy with a San Fernando Valley hospital's care of a family member, allegedly brandished a handgun and threatened to shoot hospital workers Saturday, Los Angeles police said.
The Police Department still was interviewing the officer late Saturday. He was from another city and had not been charged, Sgt. Richard Thomas said.
At about 5 p.m., workers at Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center called police, who found the officer with a handgun when they arrived.
A Kaiser Permanente nurse told investigators that the officer, whose name was not released, "threatened to shoot the place up if he didn't get good service and brandished a weapon," Thomas said.
Thomas refused to say what the relationship was between the patient and the officer, or why the patient was in the hospital. He said the patient had been there for about a week.
KCAL-TV in Los Angeles reported the officer was from the city of Orange Police Department, and that his mother is a cancer patient at Kaiser Permanente.
Lt. Jim Hudson, Orange Police Department watch commander, refused comment and a dispatcher there referred questions to the Los Angeles police.
A nursing supervisor reached at the hospital Saturday refused to comment, and a Kaiser-Permanente spokesman also refused comment, citing patient confidentiality laws. "If it involved police, it's a police matter, and they're handling it," said spokesman Jim Anderson. Kaiser-Permanente is based in Oakland.
Saturday's alleged threat happened a little more than a year after a shooting spree left three medical workers dead at an Anaheim hospital.
Police say Dung Trinh, who was charged with murder, opened fire in West Anaheim Medical Center hours after his mother died at a different hospital. She had been treated months earlier at West Anaheim Medical Center.
