Los Angeles police shoot armed suspect on busy street
LOS ANGELES -- A man who witnesses said had fired a gun into the air was fatally shot by Los Angeles police in a busy shopping district in the San Fernando Valley, authorities said.
The shooting occurred after police responded to a call of a man with a gun on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City around 3:20 Friday afternoon, said Los Angeles police Det. Meghan Aguilar.
Witnesses told CBS Los Angeles the man was seated in front of a bank with a handgun raised into the air. According to witnesses, he fired the weapon several times.
"I saw that there were police standing in the street, aiming their weapons at him. I had heard that he had fired some shots into the air," one witness told the station. "They yelled some unintelligible commands and he appeared to be holding a gun, it was concealed by a piece of paper and then I saw two shots hit him and he went back into a planter bed."
Terry Burstein, 53, of Studio City told The Associated Press that she was headed to her job as a real estate agent about 3 p.m. and pulled into a parking lot when she saw a man relaxed and "chill" as he sat on low brick wall, firing six shots in the air from a handgun.
She said he emptied a magazine and then, as if in slow motion, pulled a new magazine from a brown paper bag and reloaded the gun.
Then he shot once more into the air, before sitting back and appearing to wait, she said.
The man didn't seem interested in shooting at people, Burstein said.
She described him as being in his 20s with a thick beard and mustache and said he appeared to be dressed for winter, wearing a leather jacket despite the warm California weather.
"He wasn't making a fuss, wasn't shouting, didn't seem angry... didn't seem to have a game plan, wasn't running away," Burstein said. "He just sat there, waiting to be shot."
Police had worried there might be a bomb attached to the body or to suspicious devices nearby, but the bomb squad cleared the area and no explosives were discovered.
A handgun was found next to the man's body, Aguilar said.