HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A man found with a gunshot wound early Wednesday morning in downtown Hollywood has died, police confirmed.
Hollywood police say they were called out to the 1900 block of Hollywood Boulevard around 4 a.m. The victim, whose name has not been released, was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital, where he died.
Police spent hours Wednesday morning investigating at the scene, placing evidence markers on Hollywood Boulevard near South 19th Avenue.
They focused their efforts on the sidewalk in front of a vacant storefront near restaurants and other stores in the downtown shopping area.
The owner of an Italian restaurant nearby says officers were just arriving when he got to work early in the morning.
He says he saw paramedics doing chest compressions on a man who was lying unresponsive on the ground. He added that the man was taken away in an ambulance and that police were questioning another man who was at the scene.
A broken watch, a pool of blood and shell casings could be seen on the ground, along with a beer bottle in the doorway of a vacant storefront.
Detectives dusted for fingerprints and took measurements of the crime scene.
“I’ve worked here almost 10 years on the boulevard itself, and I’ve never seen something to this extent,” said Jen Augugliaro, a cook at the nearby Hollywood Cheesesteak & More. “I’ve seen fights, but I’ve never seen an actual shooting. I usually —you hear about that a few blocks away, so I’m very surprised that something actually happened right here on the boulevard itself.”
If you have any information about the shooting, you are urged to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.