LA police kill man shooting at cars in Hollywood

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A gunman walked down the middle of a street in the heart of Hollywood Friday, firing on passing cars and wounding a driver before police shot and killed him.

The unidentified man, who in video clips had short hair and wore jeans and a white tank top, was pronounced dead at the scene, Los Angeles police Officer Cleon Joseph said. No officers were hurt.

Oscar Herrera, a witness, said he saw the gunman walking down the middle of Vine Street near Sunset Boulevard, firing at least nine shots into the air and at passing cars while shouting "kill me" and "I'm gonna die!"

"People were running all over," Herrera told KABC-TV. "People was ducking."

But a man who captured video of the gunman from a window several stories above the street could also be heard on the recording screaming "shoot me," ''kill me" and "I'm gonna die."

Chris Johns, who filmed from his apartment, told KABC he was trying to distract and divert the gunman from shooting anyone on the street.

John said he saw a plainclothes officer shoot the man.

The 40-year-old male driver of a Mercedes-Benz was wounded in his upper body and taken to a hospital in unknown condition. A truck and another car were struck by bullets.

The gunman eventually ran out of ammunition and pulled a knife before a policeman fired at him four or five times, Herrera said.

Dave Pepper told KCAL-TV that he was in his car when the gunman came at him.

"This guy came running across the street and he put the gun right up to this window," Pepper said as he sat in the car. "Why he didn't pull the trigger I don't know. ... I thought maybe he was out of bullets."

Investigators were trying to determine a motive for the attack. The area was cordoned off and the gunman lay under a white sheet in the street hours after the gunfire, leaving traffic tangled on busy Hollywood streets.

The area is packed with stores and restaurants, including the Cinerama Dome and Amoeba Records.

Some witnesses described the surreal incident as something that might have been staged on a movie location, a common sight around Los Angeles.

"When I heard it, I didn't react to it being real," said Greg Watkins, who was walking along the street when the shooting began.

"This is Hollywood, and they do film stuff all the time," Watkins told the Los Angeles Times. "I honestly thought they were filming something."

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Report: Police went undercover to watch Occupy LA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles police used nearly a dozen undercover detectives to infiltrate the Occupy LA encampment before this week's raid to gather information on protesters' intentions, according to media reports Friday.

None of the officers slept at the camp, but tried to blend in during the weeks leading up to the raid to learn about plans to resist or use weapons against police, a police source told the Los Angeles Times. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

The undercover work yielded information that some protesters were preparing bamboo spears and other potentially dangerous weapons in advance of an expected eviction by the LAPD, none of which were used, according to City News Service which first reported the story.

Police downplayed the significance of the undercover work since Occupy meetings were public and easily tracked.

LAPD Officer Cleon Joseph declined an Associated Press request for comment on the reports.

Occupy L.A. protester Mario Brito told City News Service he was not surprised by the revelation, but said it was "tantamount to 1950s McCarthyism."

Meanwhile, the city attorney's office filed criminal misdemeanor charges Friday against 27 more of the people who were arrested following the police sweep of the camp.

In all, 46 of the 291 people arrested during the raid have been charged with misdemeanor crimes of failure to disperse from an unlawful assembly. Some also were charged with resisting arrest.

The arrests came Wednesday during a pre-dawn raid on City Hall Park, where nearly 500 tents had been erected at the peak of an anti-Wall Street protest, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich said.

Fifty-eight posted bail or were released by police, Criminal Division Chief Earl Thomas told City News Service.

An additional 187 protesters were released without bail and without being charged, because they had no prior criminal records.

Bail amounts ranged from $5,000 for most of the defendants to as high as $20,000.

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