LA nightclub car ramming driver charged with attempted murder in US

If convicted, Fernando Ramirez could look aggregate sentences of beingness imprisonment.

A antheral accused of deliberately driving his car into a assemblage of pedestrians successful the United States, extracurricular a Los Angeles nightclub successful California implicit the weekend, has been charged with 37 counts of attempted murder, according to prosecutors.

Fernando Ramirez, 29, a nonmigratory of Orange County’s San Clemente, was besides charged connected Tuesday with 37 counts of battle with a deadly weapon, according to a connection from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. If convicted, helium could look aggregate sentences of beingness imprisonment.

The fishy is accused of intentionally driving his car onto the pavement arsenic partygoers were leaving the Vermont Hollywood venue astatine the extremity of a reggae hip-hop lawsuit aboriginal connected Saturday. The motive for the attack, which injured 37 people, remains unknown.

Ramirez, who is presently being held without bail, volition beryllium arraigned connected Wednesday. The nationalist defender’s bureau said they person not been appointed to correspond him.

“When helium drove that car onto that sidewalk, helium aimed it astatine a full oversea of pedestrians,” LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said successful announcing the charges.

The car came to a halt aft colliding with respective nutrient carts, which became lodged underneath the vehicle, and bystanders attacked the driver, constabulary said. A full of 37 radical were hurt, with injuries ranging from insignificant abrasions to superior fractures and lacerations, prosecutors said. The transgression ailment alleges that Ramirez inflicted large bodily wounded connected 8 of the victims.

Police said officers dispatched to the country recovered that Ramirez had been changeable portion being assaulted by onlookers and was himself taken to a hospital, his information unknown. A antheral suspected of shooting the motorist fled the country connected foot, according to police, who were inactive looking for the attacker connected Tuesday.

“We recognize that this brazen enactment has shaken the assemblage and but for the bully grace of God, this could person been a wide casualty incident,” Hochman said.

Among those injured, 23 radical were taken to hospitals, said Ronnie Villanueva, interim occurrence main of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Los Angeles constabulary main Jim McDonnell said, “It’s genuinely a occurrence that nary 1 was killed that day.”

Ramirez has a transgression past that includes a artillery and gang-related complaint successful 2014, an aggravated artillery condemnation for a 2019 onslaught connected a Black antheral astatine a Whole Foods market store successful Laguna Beach, California, and a home unit complaint successful 2021, records show.

Ramirez “has proved to beryllium convulsive to strangers and household alike and intelligibly has a deficiency of interest for the information of others”, Orange County prosecutors said successful a tribunal filing for the 2019 attack.

A 2024 drink-driving lawsuit and 2022 home unit complaint were pending astatine the clip of the nightclub crash, according to records.