Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, recounted in a recent interview his experience of being caught in the middle of an infamous shootout involving the Manson family.
Trujillo appeared on rock band The Offspring’s podcast, “Time to Relax with The Offspring,” on Thursday, and described the violent scene that unfolded in 1971, shortly after Charles Manson was arrested. The 59-year-old bassist said he was a young child at the time and was staying with his grandparents at an apartment in Hawthorne when the cult’s raid on a nearby surplus store turned into an infamous shootout.
“The army surplus shop there around the corner on Hawthorne Boulevard was robbed,” Trujillo said. “Basically, the Manson Family had this grand scheme — you can check it out on the internet — they were gonna rob the gun store and get their ammo and everything, and they were gonna go to LAX.”
“They were going to go to LAX and their plan was to hijack a 747 and demand that Charlie gets sent to them, and they’re gonna take this plane to God knows where. This is what they were thinking,” he added.
That’s when the rocker said things got scary for him.
“Obviously, the plan didn’t work. Cops show up. There’s a shootout,” he said. “We were hearing gunshots, the whole deal. So all of a sudden you get the [police helicopters], and they’re flying around. They’re talking through their intercom, whatever they got going up there: ‘Everybody, take cover’ … And so my dad turns off all the lights.”
“We’re hiding in the shower, and it was really eerie,” Trujillo added.
He then told the hosts that a member of the Manson Family took cover in the carport that belonged to his grandparents’ apartment unit.
“He was hiding in the carport, so of course they surrounded our place,” he explained, making clear just how close he was to the scene. “Luckily, there was a laundry room that separated the unit that we were in, so he would’ve gone into the window of the laundry room, which could have been the window of the house and then taken hostage.” (RELATED: Graphic Video Shows Rapper Arrested Amid Gunshots And Pools Of Blood)
The famous artist said he and his friends went looking for bullets the next morning and admitted he was often fearful of cult activity after that harrowing experience.
The 25-minute shootout between cops and the six Manson Family members ended with five of them in custody and three wounded, according to a contemporary New York Times report.