A 26-year-old who injured two in a shooting rampage at a busy Hollywood intersection on Friday before being killed by police may have been fueled by a break-up with his girlfriend, his ex says.
Tyler Brehm started shooting at strangers in a McDonald's parking lot around 10 a.m., police told the Los Angeles Times, before continuing his shooting spree at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.
He fired 20 rounds in the air and at nearby cars from his .40 caliber handgun, according to the LAPD, including multiple shots at a silver Mercedez-Benz in which music producer John Atterberry was sitting in the driver's seat.
Atterberry was hit three times in the face and neck. The 40-year-old executive, known for his work with artists such as Jessica Simpson, Brandy and the Spice Girls, remains in critical condition but is expected to survive.
Witnesses including shooting victim Chris Godley, 27, seemed to think the chaos was part of a movie production until they realized the violence was real. Godley, a photo editor for The Hollywood Reporter, was grazed in the right leg by a bullet.
"I hit my gas pedal and sped through the intersection as fast as I could," Godley told THR. "He took a shot and it went through my driver side door, grazed my leg, bounced off of my iPad and went into my passenger side door."
Brehm's ex-girlfriend Alicia Alligood suggested their break-up may have triggered his outburst.
The 24-year-old model told KTLA-TV they broke up "recently" after four and a half years together and Brehm, who she called a "humanitarian," was "really stressed out lately." He had begun taking drugs given to him by a woman he believed to be a pharmaceutical saleswoman, which Alligood says was at odds with his personality.
"He was very anti-pharmaceutical," she said, adding that he wanted to "change the world for the better."
Two days before the rampage, Brehm changed his Facebook relationship status from "in a relationship" to "single," and even his neighbors noted the split.
"I could tell that he was an unstable person," Brehm's neighbor Ramon Hernandez told KABC-TV.
Onlookers were able to capture scenes of Brehm's shooting spree on cell phone cameras. After running out of ammunition, he reportedly pulled out a knife, and began screaming "Kill me" and "I want to be killed," according to The Associated Press.
Brehm was shot at least four times by police, witnesses said, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alligood says she didn't know her ex-boyfriend was the shooter until Saturday morning, when she woke up to find "14 text messages" about the incident on her phone, several of which were from Brehm a few minutes before he opened fire.
"He's a very good person," she said.
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