The man who police fatally shot at Hollywood and Highland on Friday night was a street performer who dressed up as a character from the horror movie Scream, and would scare tourists to take photos for tips, witnesses say.



Witnesses say that as part of his livelihood, the man, whose name has been withheld by police, would come up to people with a plastic knife or gun to spook them. "He scares people for a living," Danny Howe, a street performer in Hollywood, told KPCC. "It kind of makes you wonder that if you scare people for a living, the cops are going to come."

Police shot the man, who is described as a young, white male, just before 7 p.m. at the bustling Hollywood intersection after responding to a 9-1-1 call from someone saying that they had been cut by a knife-wielding man. However, police weren't able to find anyone who had been slashed. Authorities said that the suspect wasn't complying with their orders, and that he was threatening people, including officers, around him. They had witness reports saying that the man was swinging a knife around. Later, police tweeted a photo what appeared to be a small pocketknife on the street near the suspect.

The man was taken to a hospital, where he died. No officers were injured.

A witness, Henry Hodge, told KABC he several gunshots.

In response to his death and in connection to the recent Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury decisions, people marched from Argyle Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard to the front of the Chinese Theatre over the weekend in a protest they dubbed as "#BlackOutHollywood" against police brutality.