The incident happened Wednesday outside a hookah bar and pizzeria at Victory Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
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Authorities said a group of four people walked out of the restaurant and were confronted by another group around 4 p.m. and the two sides exchanged gunfire.
"When I came way before the officers, way before the paramedics, I saw the guy lying down with a gunshot wound on the ground," said one witness who did not want to be identified. "The brother was there.. They were crying and they were pissed off."
That shooting victim did not survive.
A second man was shot in the abdomen, but he fled to a nearby restaurant, where he remained until someone spotted him.
"A bystander came by and advised the officers that he was in that location. Officers at that point located him and they called the ambulance," said homicide detective David Peteque.
That man was taken to the hospital, where he deteriorated to critical condition, police said.
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Wednesday's shooting is the second deadly shooting at that strip mall in three months. Two people were shot, one fatally, back in October following an argument.
1 killed, other injured in shooting after argument at hookah lounge in North Hollywood
Police say there was no argument per se on Wednesday, and the shooting happened quickly. However, authorities are trying to determine if either side fired first.
"We have to wait to finish interviewing the witnesses and get video to see who the aggressors are. Was one party protecting themselves from gunfire? I'm not saying it was good for them to have weapons on them, but obviously they did. So who are the aggressors? That's what we have to find out - who initially started the shooting," Peteque said.
No arrests have been made.