NEW YORK (AP) – Investigators on Thursday tried to determine what led a man to put on a fake beard, shoot a pizzeria employee to death and lead police on a running gun battle through the crowded streets of Greenwich Village.

When it all ended late Wednesday, the gunman had fatally shot two unarmed volunteer police officers before he was shot dead by other officers.

After the shooting stopped, David Garvin’s body lay bloodied and askew outside a shop on Bleecker Street, near New York University and close to several famous bars and restaurants, including Cafe Wha?, where Bob Dylan used to perform.

Garvin, 32, had been carrying two semiautomatic firearms and a bag with a fake beard and 100 rounds of ammunition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

“He appeared to be ready to take even more lives,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Andy Paul, a singer whose band was about to perform, said people had flocked to the area’s outdoor cafes to enjoy one of the first warm evenings of spring-like weather when the gunshots began.

“He was running this way putting a new clip in,” Paul said Thursday. “He turned around, firing at the cops.”

“I hit the ground. I wasn’t paying attention to anything. I just didn’t want to get shot,” he said.

Police were trying to determine what prompted the rampage, which began around 9 p.m. when Garvin went into a pizzeria, asked for a menu, then shot an employee 15 times in the back, Bloomberg said. Police identified the victim as Alfredo Romaro, 35.

A neighborhood resident, Tina Lourenco, said she saw the gunman and recognized him as a former employee of the restaurant. But Dominick De Marco Jr., whose sister runs the pizza parlor, told The New York Times the shooter was probably a former customer.

Garvin fled, and police who heard the shots radioed information about the gunman. Auxiliary officers Nicholas Todd Pekearo and Eugene Marshalik approached the gunman, who fired at them.

Garvin then exchanged gunfire with regular officers, who shot him, the mayor said.

Auxiliary officers are civilian volunteers who conduct patrols wearing uniforms nearly identical to regular police, but they are unarmed.

Pekearo, 28, was a writer with a book scheduled to be published soon, the mayor said. Marshalik, 19, a student at nearby New York University, had emigrated from Russia, Bloomberg said.

The younger man joined the auxiliary force after deciding he wanted to become a prosecutor.

“He would say he really enjoyed it,” said Tatyana Kochergina said at her cousin’s suburban home. “He got along with everybody on the squad. Sometimes he would ride along with the NYPD. He felt like it was where he wanted to be.”

Auxiliary officers are not issued bulletproof vests but can wear them if they buy their own. Pekearo was wearing a vest, but only one of the six bullets that hit him struck the vest.

Authorities said Garvin shot at least 23 rounds on the rampage.

Charles Jottras, 22, witnessed the last moments of the gunman’s encounter with the police from his fourth-floor apartment window. He said he counted 59 cones marking shell casings at the scene.

At the nightclub where Andy Paul’s hard-rock band had been scheduled to perform, showgoers ducked into the back of the venue. Josh Drimmer was among those who stayed hidden there until police escorted the group out.

“Hearing that many shots in a row, it was war. It felt like that for a hot second,” he said.

Someone taped a sign to a neighborhood lampost, along with pink silk flowers. It read: “Rest in peace, our beloved auxiliaries.”

City officials said the two auxiliary officers, the first to die in the line of duty since 1993, would get full police honors at their funerals. Only five other auxiliary officers have died on the job in the city’s history.

Kelly said the city’s nearly 4,500 auxiliary officers are not required to respond to emergency calls, but often serve as the “eyes and ears” of the police force.

“Day in and day out, they sacrifice their free time and energy for the people of our city,” Kelly said.

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Associated Press writers Sara Kugler, Colleen Long and Jennifer Peltz in New York and Frank Eltman on Long Island contributed to this story.

AP-ES-03-15-07 1902EDT