Shopping Rush Starts With Spurt of Violence : Crime: Dozens of frightened shoppers witness armed assaults in three Southland incidents. The confrontations result in one death and one injury.

Armed men confronted patrons at two busy shopping areas and a restaurant in a bizarre string of violent outbursts that occurred just as the holiday shopping season was starting.

The unrelated incidents in downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood and Rancho Palos Verdes terrified dozens of people and resulted in one death and one injury Wednesday as police killed a man allegedly stalking shoppers with a 16-inch hunting knife and wounded another said to have aimlessly fired his gun into a crowd.

Los Angeles police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth on Thursday called the actions “commentaries on the type of violence we are dealing with,” but said he doubted it is an omen for the holidays.

“They are coincidences in that they happened so close together,” Booth said. “But there’s no relationship between them. This is not an indication that the streets of Los Angeles will be riddled with gunfire while people are out doing their Christmas shopping.”

Police said the first confrontation began at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, when an unidentified man started threatening people with a knife he had stolen from a display counter at one of the shops located in the Arcade Building, a crowded indoor shopping plaza in the 500 block of South Broadway.

The man, who appeared to be in his 50s, reportedly brandished the knife in front of two people before frightened downtown shoppers flagged down a motorcycle officer.

Miguel Espinosa, a security guard at the arcade, said a second police officer eventually joined in the pursuit as the man sprinted down the vendor-lined plaza jammed with afternoon shoppers.

Police repeatedly shouted to the man, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!” but he continued to flee, Espinosa said. About two thirds of the way through the arcade, he stopped and grabbed a salesman in front of Nice Gifts, an electronics shop, and reportedly threatened to stab him.

“The man with the knife said to the employee, ‘You are my protection,’ ” said Herman Secena, the building manager. “He didn’t pay attention to what police were yelling at him.”

Secena said police then shot at the knife-wielding man several times as shoppers looked on, hitting him in the leg and the midsection. As he was keeling over from the gunshot wounds, he made a feeble attempt at throwing the “huge” knife at the police officers, the manager said.

The man died hours later at County-USC Medical Center, police said.

In the second incident, a man identified as Francisco Salazar, 31, reportedly fired several shots into a crowd of shoppers in the vicinity of Santa Monica Boulevard and St. Andrews Place in Hollywood at about 5:50 p.m. Wednesday.

There were no injuries, according to police, who said Salazar turned and ran from the hysterical crowd as two police officers in an unmarked car arrived.

Lt. William Hall said Salazar ignored the officers’ orders to halt.

“They got out of their vehicle and identified themselves as police officers,” he said. “But the suspect continued to run.”

Hall said the officers opened fire when Salazar stopped in a parking lot, turned and confronted them with his gun. Salazar, shot in the the neck and abdomen, was in serious but stable condition at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Sol Feldman, 65, owner of Music Center in the 5600 block of Santa Monica, across the street from the parking lot, said business has progressively quieted as the neighborhood has deteriorated.

“Incidents like this definitely affect business,” Feldman said as he stared at two nickel-sized bullet holes in the showroom window of his musical instrument store.

In line with one hole was a used parlor grand piano with a bullet lodged in it. Two pianos away, the leg on a new spinet had been shattered by another errant bullet.

“People find out where we are located, and they don’t want to come here,” he said.

In Rancho Palos Verdes, meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies were investigating a thwarted armed robbery that occurred shortly before midnight Wednesday, when three men entered Reuben’s Restaurant in the 28000 block of South Western Avenue.

Deputies said one of the men grabbed a customer who tried to flee as another, who was holding a gun, walked over to the dance floor and told a handful of customers and employees: “This is serious. This is not a joke.”

As the gunman reportedly pushed one of the patrons to the floor, a waitress ran through the dining room, which was closed for the evening, and locked herself inside the manager’s office. Deputies said the gunman fired a shot, but the waitress was not hurt.

When the gunman overheard the waitress calling the 911 emergency number, he reportedly ran back to the bar and fired another shot into the ceiling before fleeing with his accomplices, deputies said.