Downtown: Man, 27, shot several times

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Tommie Hayes, a 27-year-old black man, died after he was shot several times Sunday, April 12, 2009, at Stanford Avenue and East 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles, according to coroner’s officials.

[Update: Los Angeles police gave Hayes’ age as 33.]

Kevin Cohen, a 49-year-old black man, was also shot to death in the incident, which occurred in a skid row hotel in what police said were the year’s first slayings in downtown Los Angeles.

Hayes and Cohen were found about 5 a.m. with multiple gunshot wounds at the Lamp Lodge, police said.

Neither of the men were staying at the hotel, said Los Angeles Police Department Det. Albert Marengo.

One of the men was found inside the hotel’s first-floor lounge, and the other victim had walked out of the hotel after the shooting and collapsed in the parking lot, Marengo said. Witnesses said they saw a man fleeing the scene, the detective added.

Marengo said he hoped more witnesses would come forward with information about the shooting.

“I’m sure there were people inside and outside the hotel” at the time of the slayings, he said.

Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz said the killings were the first this year in the department’s Central Division. The last homicide on skid row was June 16, 2008, according to a department news release.

-- Ari B. Bloomekatz