Actor Raymond Cruz was held in custody for five hours on Monday after a sudsy spat with three women in his Los Angeles neighborhood.
Cruz — who portrayed the drug lord Tuco Salamanca on “Breaking Bad” — was washing his car on the street in front of his Silver Lake-area home when another car with three female occupants parked inches away from him, said Raphael Berko, his agent with Media Artists Group.
Cruz asked the women, who appeared to be in their 30s, to move their car at least a foot away so it wouldn’t get wet, according to Berko.
“The women were very rude to him and said no,” Berko said, adding that ample parking was available elsewhere on the street.
Instead, the women took out their phones and started to record Cruz, Berko said.
The actor, who also played detective Julio Sanchez in “The Closer” and its spin-off series “Major Crimes,” became uncomfortable and turned around, hose in hand, to tell them to “stop recording,” Berko said.
In doing so, Berko says some water may have inadvertently splashed on the women. But the women — one of whom was the daughter of a housekeeper on the block — said Cruz intentionally sprayed them, and they called the police to report an alleged assault.
Cruz was handcuffed by the Los Angeles Police Department and taken into custody for five hours, but Berko said he and his client expect the case will be dropped.
Berko characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, and said Cruz doesn’t have a criminal record.
The actor has a court hearing scheduled for Oct. 1, but online records do not show any charges as of Tuesday afternoon.
