A man was shot and killed outside The Comedy Store in West Hollywood at 12:49 a.m. Wednesday.
When reached for comment by The Hollywood Reporter, Dept. Sara Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said that the victim had been shot while standing with a group of people on the patio outside the comedy club.
According to witnesses, a man in a dark hoodie approached the group and opened fire, striking the victim in the upper torso at least once. The shooter then fled south down Olive Avenue. The victim was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The police are still looking for the suspect and have not yet released the name or age of the victim.
ABC7 first reported the shooting, tweeting: “Man shot and killed outside The Comedy Store in West Hollywood. Police looking for gunman.”
The Comedy Store couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Photos tweeted by people in the area showed police tape outside the club.
Mike Black, who had been scheduled to perform at 1:00 a.m. tweeted at 4:30 a.m. that there had been a shooting with “one fatality” but that “everyone else (all comics, staff & audience are okay.”
To minimize worry, there was a shooting @TheComedyStore earlier with one fatality. Everyone else (all comics, staff & audience are okay.
— Mike Black (@MIKEBLACKATTACK) October 14, 2015
In a message on Facebook Wednesday morning, comedian Brandt Tobler wrote, “I have been sitting in this police station for the last 5 hours, because somebody walked up and murdered a man 10 feet away from me last night. I have never been that close to that kind of violence and it was something I will never forget.”
