LA nightclub car ramming driver charged with attempted murder in US
Fernando Ramirez, 29, a resident of Orange County's San Clemente, was also charged on Tuesday with 37 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. If convicted, he could face multiple sentences of life imprisonment.
The suspect is accused of intentionally driving his car onto the pavement as partygoers were leaving the Vermont Hollywood venue at the end of a reggae hip-hop event early on Saturday. The motive for the attack, which injured 37 people, remains unknown.
Ramirez, who is currently being held without bail, will be arraigned on Wednesday. The public defender's office said they have not been appointed to represent him.
'When he drove that car onto that sidewalk, he aimed it at a whole sea of pedestrians,' LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in announcing the charges.
The car came to a stop after colliding with several food carts, which became lodged underneath the vehicle, and bystanders attacked the driver, police said. A total of 37 people were hurt, with injuries ranging from minor abrasions to serious fractures and lacerations, prosecutors said. The criminal complaint alleges that Ramirez inflicted great bodily injury on eight of the victims.
Police said officers dispatched to the scene found that Ramirez had been shot while being assaulted by onlookers and was himself taken to a hospital, his condition unknown. A man suspected of shooting the motorist fled the scene on foot, according to police, who were still looking for the attacker on Tuesday.
'We understand that this brazen act has shaken the community and but for the good grace of God, this could have been a mass casualty incident,' Hochman said.
Among those injured, 23 people were taken to hospitals, said Ronnie Villanueva, interim fire chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Los Angeles police chief Jim McDonnell said, 'It's truly a miracle that no one was killed that day.'
Ramirez has a criminal history that includes a battery and gang-related charge in 2014, an aggravated battery conviction for a 2019 attack on a Black man at a Whole Foods grocery store in Laguna Beach, California, and a domestic violence charge in 2021, records show.
Ramirez 'has proved to be violent to strangers and family alike and clearly has a lack of concern for the safety of others', Orange County prosecutors said in a court filing for the 2019 attack.
A 2024 drink-driving case and 2022 domestic violence charge were pending at the time of the nightclub crash, according to records.
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