Several witnesses and police officers watched as a man shot and killed a woman Friday afternoon on a busy thoroughfare near downtown Long Beach, police said.

The shooting, which has rocked the tiny town, happened as thousands of people flocked to the Long Beach Peninsula for the annual Rod Run to the End of the World classic car rally, one of the city’s biggest tourist draws of the year.

Police said Brian K. Brush of Roseburg, Ore., shot lifelong Long Beach resident Lisa G. Bonney, 45, three times with a shotgun on Bolstad Street, which tourists and locals use to access the beach.

Two Long Beach police officers were about 150 yards away when they saw Brush shoot downward into the grass, Long Beach Police Chief Flint Wright said Saturday afternoon. As the officers, who were patrolling the Rod Run rally on foot, ran toward Brush, he dropped the shotgun and approached them with his hands in the air, Wright said.

The officers discovered Bonney’s body only after they had handcuffed Brush and returned to the area where he had been shooting, Wright said. She was not breathing by the time the officers reached her.

“She died instantly,” Wright said.

Wright said “numerous” witnesses were standing close to Brush, 47, when he opened fire. “You’re talking just a few feet from where the guy was shooting,” he said.

The beach, Wright said, was “not overly crowded” but “there were quite a few people down there.”

Brush, the owner of a Roseburg aluminum boat manufacturer, is being held in the Pacific County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder. In April, the FBI accused Brush and his company, North River Boats, of conning Wells Fargo bank out of millions of dollars in credit, according to the Roseburg News-Review. He faces lawsuits throughout Oregon, the newspaper said.

Bonney, a real estate agent who grew up in Long Beach, was well-known around town.

Wright said he’d known Bonney since they were kids. “I liked her,” he said. “She was a nice person.”

Locals in the town are “shook up,” he said.

Wright said Bonney and Brush had been in an “on again, off again” relationship and that Brush had been splitting his time between Long Beach and Roseburg.

The couple, he said, were arguing on the Bolstad Beach approach around 4:40 p.m. Friday when she walked away. Brush retrieved a shotgun from his truck, returned to the scene and started shooting, Wright said.

The incident couldn’t have come at a worse time for Long Beach. The town is overrun this weekend by car enthusiasts, who have jammed every hotel and clogged the streets with hot rods. The Long Beach Police Department brings in 20 additional officers for the event, Wright said. As he spoke on the phone Saturday afternoon, the sound of rumbling car engines could be heard in the background.

Long Beach City Councilman Gordon Zuern, who also knew Bonney, said the shooting was “a shock” but it didn’t seem to disrupt the car rally.

“Even last night the streets were just jammed full,” he said. “It’s just one of those strange situations. Very strange.”