Chris Brown arrested for suspected assault at L.A. home

[August 31, 2016]   By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Chris Brown was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on Tuesday after a daylong standoff at his Los Angeles home that began with a dawn 911 call from a woman, police said.

Brown, 27, denied any wrongdoing in posts on Instagram before he was taken into custody and said he had woken up to find police outside the property in the Tarzana neighborhood in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.

"He is being transported to robbery homicide, where he will be arrested for assault with a deadly weapon," Los Angeles Police Department's Lieutenant Chris Ramirez told reporters at a media conference outside Brown's home.

Brown was released on bail of $250,000 bail late on Tuesday night, according to online county records.

Ramirez declined to elaborate on the charges against Brown, saying an investigation was still under way. The Los Angeles Times reported that the singer pointed a gun at a woman it identified as Baylee Curran.

Curren told the newspaper Brown threatened her when she was admiring diamond jewelry and told her and a friend to leave the house.

Police who responded to the 911 emergency call at about 3 a.m. (1000 GMT) on Tuesday spent hours surrounding the house before beginning a search of the sprawling premises.

During that search, TMZ posted a photo of Brown standing on the front porch with a police officer and his attorney, Mark Geragos. Geragos could not be reached by Reuters for comment.

"I don't sleep half the damn night I just wake up to all these ... helicopters, choppers is around, police out there at the gate," Brown said in a video he posted on Instagram showing police stationed outside the house.

"What I do care about is you are defacing my name and my character and integrity," he said, saying he had done nothing wrong and criticizing police actions.

"I don't care y'all going to stay playing with me like I'm the villain out here, like I'm going crazy ... good luck when you get the warrant or whatever you need to do. You're going to walk right up in here and you're going to see nothing you idiots," he said.

In 2009, Brown assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna, and in 2015 finished a lengthy term of probation, community service and domestic violence classes.

(Additional reporting by Jill Serjeant and Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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