The body of Tyler Brehm, 26, was scheduled to be examined later Saturday, Los Angeles County Coroner’s Lt. Larry Dietz said.
Brehm walked down the middle of Sunset Boulevard on Friday, firing on motorists with no clear target until police shot him, authorities said.
In amateur video taken at the scene, the gunman appeared to have short hair and wore jeans and a white tank top. He paced back and forth near the busy intersection with Vine Street, firing close to 20 rounds from what appeared to be a .40 caliber handgun, police said. Several witnesses reported seeing him reload at least once.
“He was screaming he was going to die and that he wanted to die,” Gregory Bojorquez, a photographer who captured images of the shooting’s aftermath, told the Los Angeles Times.
Investigators were trying to determine a motive for the attack.
Ramon Hernandez, who lived in the apartment next door to Brehm, said Brehm and his girlfriend had recently broken up and moved out.
He told KABC-TV Saturday that the pair kept to themselves, but he at times heard them arguing.
“I could tell that he was an unstable person,” Hernandez said, “but I don’t know the details on what actually made him snap.”
Brehm’s girlfriend, Alicia Alligood, did not appear on camera, but told a KNBC reporter that she and Brehm had “been dating for four and a half years, we broke up recently.”
Chris Johns captured video of the gunman from his apartment window several stories above the street, and tried to distract and divert the gunman from shooting anyone on the street.
“Hey why don’t you come up here! Come up here buddy!” Johns yelled.
Johns told KABC-TV he saw a plainclothes officer shoot the man.
“I started shouting out to the officer, saying ‘take him out, that’s the guy!’” Johns said.
The gunman continued shooting at vehicles and in the air when he was confronted by an off-duty LAPD officer and a plainclothes detective who was on duty in the area.
The officers ordered the suspect to stop and drop his weapon. He was shot when he pointed his weapon at the officers. The gunman was pronounced dead at the scene, Los Angeles police Officer Cleon Joseph said. No officers were hurt.
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, an area packed with stores and restaurants.
The 40-year-old male driver of a Mercedes-Benz was wounded in the face and upper torso and taken to a hospital in “guarded and critical condition,” police said in a statement.
John Atterberry remained in critical condition Saturday night, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center spokeswoman Simi Singer told The Associated Press.
Atterberry is a music industry executive who has worked with artists like Brandy, The Spice Girls and Jessica Simpson, according to the trade paper The Hollywood Reporter and other media outlets.
