On a seemingly ordinary afternoon in Rancho Palos Verdes, deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lomita Station responded to reports of a man acting strangely on the trails. What they found was alarming: a heavily armed individual dressed for trouble, right near the upscale Trump National Golf Course.
The man, later identified as 36-year-old Sean Steiner from Glendale, CBS REPORTS was spotted running through traffic on Palos Verdes Drive South while wearing full rifle-rated body armor, gloves, and carrying a duffle bag plus a step stool. Deputies say he was also armed with a loaded semi-automatic short-barreled rifle (painted green and purple with Joker movie phrases like “Why so serious?” and “Let’s put a smile on that face”), a loaded revolver, two additional handguns, high-capacity magazines, extra ammunition, and more weapons nearby.
According to the sheriff’s release, Steiner even admitted to firing one of the pistols near a landslide area “to get some anger out.”
That kind of detail sends a chill down your spine when you picture families and golfers just a short distance away on those beautiful cliffs overlooking the Pacific.
How the Arrest Went Down
It all started thanks to an observant citizen who saw something that “didn’t sit right” and decided to call it in. Deputies quickly located Steiner hiking through nearby trails. He was taken into custody without incident and booked on multiple felony firearm charges.
The seized items paint a concerning picture: a short-barreled AR-style pistol with its tip painted orange (like a toy gun), ballistic vest capable of stopping rifle rounds, and that eye-catching Joker-themed rifle loaded with a round in the chamber and a full magazine.
See something, say something — the sheriff’s station emphasized that exact message after the arrest, and in this case, it clearly worked.