A man was shot by the police in a fast-food restaurant in Hollywood on Tuesday afternoon. The man stabbed three in an unprovoked attack using a butcher knife.
Described as a man in his 30s, the assailant stabbed a bicyclist about 2 pm at a popular corridor along Sunset Boulevard, near the ArcLight Cinemas, Amoeba Music and the Los Angeles offices of CNN. Sgt. Frank Preciado, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said that the police confronted the man a couple of times before shooting him an unknown number of times, according to Daily News.
The assailant who then ran down Sunset Boulevard, tried intruding a coffee shop and were chased off by the employees. He left the place and continued eastbound, whereby he walked into Jack in the Box and stabbed another man, Preciado said.
While the police rushed into the fast-food restaurant where the second victim tried to flee from, the man knifed a third person. Authorities did not release the name of the assailant who died at the scene.
Meanwhile, investigators are trying to inquire the motive for the attacks. They are unsure if the assailant knew the three victims beforehand, and if they were connected in some way. According to the LA Times, he investigators are also planning to review surveillance video of the incident as Preciado said there was no footage from body-worn cameras to review.
A video of the gruesome incident was posted on the social media from inside the fast-food restaurant. It showed a person calling for a belt or shoelace to be used as a tourniquet for a victim sitting on a chair, surrounded by a pool of blood on the floor.
All three victims were admitted at a nearby hospital with serious stab wounds. Two of them were treated as critical condition while the third victim was in serious condition.
