Man beaten to death outside West Hollywood bar; 2 suspects fled

One man died and another suffered minor injuries after they were attacked and beaten outside a West Hollywood bar early Friday; two suspects fled the scene and remain at large, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

All four people were leaving the bar E.P. & L.P. on the corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Melrose Avenue when a scuffle broke out just before 12:30 a.m., said sheriff’s Lt. Derrick Alfred.

“It appears to be one of those things where the suspect thought the victims were talking about him and ... he accused the victims, ‘Why are you talking about me?’” Alfred said. “[One of the victims] said, ‘We’re not talking about you,’ and it escalated from there.”

The two assailants, a man and a woman, allegedly hit the victim with a blunt object, possibly a bottle, and knocked him to the ground, kicking him and stomping on his head as he lay unconscious, Alfred said. Authorities pronounced him dead at the scene. His identity was withheld until his family could be notified, Alfred said.

The victim’s friend, a 49-year-old Los Angeles man, suffered some “superficial injuries” to his head but was not taken to a hospital, Alfred said.

Their relation to the two suspects is unclear. But Alfred said they were in separate groups at the bar.

“Right now, it doesn’t appear that they had any kind of interaction at all inside the establishment ... until everybody was leaving,” Alfred said.

The two assailants ran north on La Cienega Boulevard as bystanders began attending to the victim, he said. Authorities are investigating video surveillance and reviewing credit card receipts from the cashless bar to identify the suspects, according to Alfred.