Subway driver arrested after falling asleep on bus with gun

Traffic was blocked and a SWAT team was sent to Glendale Monday morning after a Metro bus driver found a sleeping passenger with a gun.

At about 9:44 a.m., bus drivers were changing shifts at the intersection of San Fernando and West Los Feliz Road when one of them “discovered a gun in the waistband of a sleeping passenger” and notified police, Metro officials reported. Glendale police arrived within minutes and escorted the other passengers off the bus while Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officers arrested the armed passenger, said Sergeant Vahe Abramyan, Glendale police spokesman.

The intersection was reopened around noon.

In a statement thanking the bus driver, Metro reminded the public that the company’s policy “strictly prohibits the carrying of dangerous weapons on the Metro system, whether concealed or visible.”

This isn’t the first time police have been called because a sleeping subway passenger was carrying a gun. Last year, Los Angeles police used their controversial robot dog to communicate with a passenger who had nodded off with a suspected firearm. In that case, it turned out to be an air rifle.

Writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.