Easy to understand why... And it isn't a movie. It's the real thing! https://twitter.com/i/status/1092663307771625472 https://twitter.com/i/status/1092674138798358529 Apparently it's a US Army Special Forces urban warfare exercise. It had been announced and people had been alerted that it was going to happen, but Angelenos are notoriously oblivious and many never heard. When helicopters started flying low between the office towers of downtown LA, landing in the streets and soldiers were rappelling onto rooftops, and when people heard explosions, they thought of 9-11 and started worrying about getting out of dodge. https://abc7.com/military-exercise-causes-scare-in-dtla/5121269/ https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-army-training-20190204-story.html
For a minute I thought you were talking about something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
So this is what happens when you lose the Superbowl?? I guess that the Army wants its special operators to be ready for Die Hard scenarios. That one took place in an LA office tower, and the terrorists were only defeated because your look-alike, Bruce Willis playing an off-duty NY police officer, happened to be there. Unless you or our Bruce is gonna be stationed in LA, they gotta be ready to handle it on their own. From the number of helicopters and the fact that activities were occurring simultaneously in multiple locations, including Long Beach down by the Port of LA, they seem to have been imagining something much bigger than Die Hard. Maybe something more like London has Fallen.