Rental truck driver arrested during anti-Iranian regime rally speaks out

The rental truck driver arrested during an anti-Iranian regime rally last week said he had no intention to harm anyone and supported the demonstration.

The Los Angeles Police Department arrested Calor Madanescht, 48, after he allegedly drove into the crowd of protesters and injured two people. 

Madanescht said he was not driving into protesters but trying to park. He added a video that shows an LAPD officer waving him through the demonstration before the crowd turned on him and chanted "Kill him."

"There are many voices ... chanting to kill me," Madanescht said.

He added that he supported the demonstrators' message to remove the current regime and didn't think driving a U-Haul truck into a protest might invoke fear. 

"I never thought about that because I am a peaceful person," Madanescht said. "In my world, this is a peaceful demonstration."

However, UCLA professor Benjamin Radd said the signs on the side of Madanescht's truck had rhetoric used by violent radicals who want to sow chaos in Iran.

"To drive a truck like that — with both anti-government, anti-imperialist, anti-American slogans, into a crowd of charged Iranian Americans who tend to be most of them monarchist or at least anti-Islamic Republic — is going to absolutely inflame the crowd," Radd said. "I think it was meant to be evocative, meant to be provocative, meant to stir a response. You don't just do that."

Madanescht said he was unaware the rhetoric was tied to the radical groups. He said he came to the rally to express another opinion about what should happen in Iran and thought it would be welcomed.   

"Many people of Iran have different opinions and different beliefs, and they were all attending to support the Iranian people for freedom and democracy," he said.   

Attorney Ariel Rofeim, who witnessed the confrontation between Mandescht and protesters, said the crowd may have been open to the message if it wasnt plastered on a truck driving towards them. 

"They perceived a significant threat of violence," Rofeim said. "You do not need a U-Haul truck to get your messaging across. Nothing prevented this man, this attacker, from standing across the street with this sign and using his voice to make his point. But, instead, he intentionally got the biggest U-Haul truck he could find and drove through a crowd of protesters and incited terror."

Madanescht was charged with reckless driving for the event.