All northbound lanes of the 405 freeway were shut down near Howard Hughes Parkway after a police shooting just before 5:30 a.m., cutting off one of the main routes past Los Angeles International Airport.
The California Highway Patrol said northbound traffic was being diverted off at Howard Hughes Parkway, while the on-ramps at Sepulveda and La Tijera boulevards were also closed. The shutdown hit drivers headed toward a stretch that already carries heavy early-morning traffic, and it came minutes after Los Angeles Police Department officials said the incident on the freeway happened just before 4:30 a.m.
Los Angeles police were pursuing a robbery suspect and opened fire on the freeway, according to NBC4. That account helps explain why the closure spread beyond the immediate shooting scene and quickly forced traffic off the northbound lanes.
The part that mattered most to commuters was what came next, and that was uncertainty. The California Highway Patrol did not have an estimate for when the northbound lanes would reopen, leaving drivers with no clear timeline and no easy alternate path around the closure near LAX.
For now, the 405 closure remains a live disruption on a major Los Angeles corridor, with northbound traffic pushed off the freeway and the reopening still unresolved.
