July 25--A gunman who opened fire along a busy stretch of Ventura Boulevard in Studio City was dead Friday after a chaotic scene in which police fired at the man and later detonated at least two devices feared to be explosives.
The incident brought a massive police response and closed off much of the area, including Ventura and Laurel Canyon boulevards. An LAPD spokeswoman said Ventura Boulevard could be closed until at least midnight as investigators comb through the scene.
Police said the incident unfolded about 3:20 p.m., when people reported a man with a gun along Ventura Boulevard near Vantage Avenue.
Paul Gilmartin told the Los Angeles Times he was at a Peet's Coffee Tea when he heard several shots fired. He said he then saw a man in his 40s or 50s with curly hair wearing a black jacket and holding a gun. People in the area starting running in fear.
The man fired two shots in the air and two shots toward the ground as he sat on a bench or raised planter outside Union Bank, Gilmartin said. The man then looked side to side, Gilmartin said, "kind of calmly looking around."
"It was so bizarre," Gilmartin said. "He wasn't agitated.... He looked like he was just waiting for the cops."
When police arrived, Gilmartin said, they yelled at the man: "Drop the gun. Drop the gun." The officers appeared to take cover behind their patrol car doors, then the man raised his gun, Gilmartin said.
Gilmartin jumped and hid behind a tree and several shots were fired. When he looked up, he said he saw the man slumped over.
Det. Meghan Aguilar, an LAPD spokeswoman, said it was unclear whether the man died from police gunfire or a self-inflicted wound.
Ken LaZebnik, 60, said he was working in his Ventura Boulevard office when he heard two loud thuds. He wondered if they were gunshots, he said, but thought it might be construction noise.
Then he heard two more thuds, he said. "I said, 'Well, something's going on.'"
LaZebnik looked out the back door of his office and saw police officers swarm the scene, their guns drawn. He went to the front door. A man's body was outside a bank across the street, sprawled across a small brick ledge into a flower bed.
"He was dead," LaZebnik said.
A metal cylinder -- it looked like a coffee container -- and black briefcase were on the ground near the man, LaZebnik said. About 40 minutes later, a robot rolled up to the cylinder, lifted it up and rolled to a nearby driveway, LaZebnik said.
There, the robot detonated the metal cylinder. "There was a puff of smoke," LaZebnik said.
LaZebnik said the robot returned to the man's body and appeared to examine it with a camera. Later, he said, the robot dragged the briefcase away and detonated it.
Aguilar said the LAPD bomb squad examined the man's body for any possible explosives before police approached him. Nothing explosive was found, she told reporters at the scene, but a handgun was recovered nearby.
No other injuries have been reported.
There were initial reports that the incident was tied to a bank robbery, but LAPD and FBI officials said that information was not true.
veronica.rocha@latimes.com
kate.mather@latimes.com
katie.shepherd@latimes.com
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UPDATES
6:30 p.m.: This article was updated with new information.
5:28 p.m.: This article was updated with information about the gunman's death.
5 p.m.: This article was updated with information about the officer-involved shooting.
4:34 p.m.: This article was updated with new details and quotes throughout.
This article was originally published at 4:15 p.m.
