The three UCLA Bruins freshmen who had remained in China after being arrested for allegedly shoplifting flew home and arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, where they were mobbed.
Reporters were all over the scene at LAX when the players arrived and had cameras and flash photography ready. You can get a sense of what the scene was like from the video below.
Bonkers seen at LAX as the 3 UCLA basketball players accused of theft in China return to the states pic.twitter.com/oqQaKZ8iy4
— Chris Law (@ChrisLaw) November 15, 2017
This video gives an even better taste of it, though it does have some profanity midway through.
#UCLA players accused of shoplifting return to #Lax and this crazy media scrum @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/UxgsJ1yJ7Z
— Tom (T.J.) Wait (@CBSLATom) November 15, 2017
The three players — LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill — were being held in China with their case pending after being caught on video allegedly shoplifting from three stores nearby their team hotel. UCLA had traveled to China to face Georgia Tech in their season-opening game on Saturday, which they won. The three players were on a house arrest type of situation at the team hotel, did not play in the game, and did not fly back with the rest of the team.
They were lucky that President Donald Trump happened to be in China and was able to help negotiate their release. The players were able to escape with the charges being dropped.
As you can tell from the video, the players appear to have been scared straight and were silent when faced with all the questions.
