Driver charged after plowing into Los Angeles nightclub crowd, injuring 30
The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Fernando Ramirez, was charged on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) spokeswoman Rosario Cervantes told AFP.
Ramirez had been "undergoing surgery" at a local hospital after suffering a gunshot wound from the incident.
"He is not free to leave, he is in the custody of Los Angeles Police Department," LAPD Commander Lillian Carranza told local news station KCAL.
Ramirez had been kicked out of The Vermont Hollywood nightclub in East Hollywood before he deliberately rammed his vehicle into the crowd, US media reported.
Based on reviewing a video of the incident, "when he hit bystanders, it was an intentional act," the Los Angeles Times quoted LAPD Captain Ben Fernandes as saying.
The crowd pulled Ramirez out of the car, reportedly a Nissan Versa sedan, and attacked him in the chaos that followed the car ramming, which took place around 2:00 am (0900 GMT), police detailed.
Authorities were still searching for a gunman who shot and wounded the driver before fleeing on foot, Cervantes said.
Footage posted on social media showed panicked people running outside the club and victims sprawled on a blood-stained sidewalk, while others sobbed nearby.
"When officers arrived, they found the driver being assaulted by bystanders and determined he had sustained a gunshot wound," a police statement said.
More than 100 firefighters responded to the scene in East Hollywood.
"We have 30 victims, 18 females and 12 males between the ages of the mid-twenties to early thirties," Carranza said.
Seven were in critical condition and six were in serious condition, authorities said. Ten suffered minor injuries while seven left the hospital against medical advice.
- 'Heartbreaking tragedy' -
Many clubgoers were outside when the car plowed into the crowd, a taco truck and a valet stand.
"They were all standing in line going into a nightclub. There was a taco cart out there, so they were ... getting some food, waiting to go in. And there's also a valet line there," Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Adam Van Gerpen told ABC News.
"The valet podium was taken out, the taco truck was taken out, and then a large number of people were impacted by the vehicle."
At dawn Saturday, a tow truck hauled away the car, its bumper torn off. Club employees power washed the sidewalk outside The Vermont Hollywood, which had been hosting a reggae and hip-hop event.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the incident "a heartbreaking tragedy."
"The hearts of Angelenos are with all of the victims impacted this morning -- a full investigation into what happened is underway," she said in a statement.
The Vermont Hollywood club said on social media it was "deeply saddened by the tragic incident."
The area of the car ramming is near Hollywood landmarks including Sunset Boulevard and the Walk of Fame -- a sidewalk emblazoned with stars commemorating movie industry figures.
sms-jgc/mtp
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Takeaways: US military enters gray area with expanded role at Mexico-US border
NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — President Donald Trump has thrust the military into a central role in deterring illegal crossings into the U.S. at its southern border. The strategy is playing out in Arizona's border community of Nogales, where an Army scout used an optical scope this week to find a man atop the border wall and sounded the alarm. As the man lowered himself toward U.S. soil between coils of concertina wire, shouts rang out and a U.S. Border Patrol SUV sped toward the wall — warning enough to send the man scrambling back over it, disappearing into Mexico. Such sightings of illegal entry are growing rarer and the rate of apprehensions at the border has fallen to a 60-year low. 'Deterrence is actually boring,' 24-year old Army Sgt. Ana Harker-Molina said, voicing the tedium felt by some soldiers over the sporadic sightings during two days in which The Associated Press embedded with the military on the border. Still, Harker-Molina, an immigrant who came from Panama at age 12 and is now a U.S. citizen, said she believes the deployment of U.S. troops discourages crossings by their mere presence. Military mission expands U.S. troop deployments at the border have tripled to 7,600 and include every branch of the military — even as the number of attempted illegal crossings plummets and Trump has authorized funding for an additional 3,000 Border Patrol agents, offering $10,000 signing and retention bonuses. The military's expanded mission is guided from a new command center at a remote Army intelligence training base alongside southern Arizona's Huachuca Mountains. A community hall there has been transformed into a bustling war room of battalion commanders and staff with digital maps pinpointing military camps and movements along the nearly 2,000-mile border. Until now border enforcement had been the domain of civilian law enforcement, with the military only intermittently stepping in. But since April, large swaths of border have been designated militarized zones, empowering U.S. troops to apprehend immigrants and others accused of trespassing on Army, Air Force or Navy bases, and authorizing additional criminal charges that can mean prison time. The two-star general leading the new mission says troops work closely with U.S. Border Patrol agents in high-traffic areas for illegal crossings — and can deploy rapidly to remote, unguarded terrain. 'We don't have a (labor) union, there's no limit on how many hours we can work in a day, how many shifts we can man,' said Army Maj. Gen. Scott Naumann. 'We can fly people into incredibly remote areas now that we see the cartels shifting' course. Stopping the 'got-aways' At Nogales, Army scouts patrolled the border Tuesday in full battle gear — helmet, M5 service rifle, bullet-resistant vest — with the right to use deadly force if attacked under standing military rules integrated into the border mission. Underfoot, smugglers for decades routinely attempted to tunnel into stormwater drains to ferry contraband into the U.S. Naumann's command post oversees an armada of 117 armored Stryker vehicles, more than 35 helicopters and a half-dozen long-distance drones that can survey the border day and night with sensors to pinpoint people wandering the desert. Marine Corps engineers are adding concertina wire to slow crossings, as the Trump administration reboots border wall construction. Naumann said the focus is on stopping 'got-aways' who evade authorities to disappear into the U.S. in a race against the clock that can last seconds in urban areas as people vanish into smuggling vehicles, or several days in the dense wetland thickets of the Rio Grande or the vast desert and mountainous wilderness of Arizona. The rate of apprehensions at the border is slowing down, Naumann acknowledges. But, he says, it would be wrong to let up, that crossings may rebound with the end of scorching summer weather. 'We're having some successes, we are trending positively,' he said of the mission with no fixed end-date. Militarized zones are 'a gray area' The Trump administration is using the military broadly to boost its immigration operations, from guarding federal buildings in Los Angeles against protests over ICE detentions, to assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Florida to plans to hold detained immigrants on military bases. Dan Maurer, a law professor at Ohio Northern University and a retired U.S. Army judge advocate officer, says it's all part of a 'muscular' strategy by Trump to show his political base he is serious about a campaign promise to fix immigration. The results are both norm-breaking and unusual, he said. The militarized zones at the border sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil. 'It's in that gray area, it may be a violation — it may not be. The military's always had the authority to arrest people and detain them on military bases,' said Joshua Kastenberg, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law and a former Air Force judge.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'Doomsday mom' Lori Daybell given 2 life sentences in murder conspiracy trials
Lori Daybell was sentenced to two life sentences in Arizona on Friday for conspiring with her late brother to kill her fourth husband, who was fatally shot in 2019, and her niece's ex-husband, who survived a failed drive-by shooting that same year. Daybell was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in two separate trials in Maricopa County this spring. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years for each conviction, to be served consecutively, the judge said.. "In the face of such profound damage, a long prison sentence is not merely a punishment, it is a necessary affirmation that our society values justice, protection and the sanctity of human life," Judge Justin Beresky, who presided over both trials in Phoenix, said before handing down the sentences. The so-called "doomsday mom" is already serving multiple life sentences after being convicted in 2023 of murdering two of her children. Prosecutors in the Idaho trial argued that she and her current husband, Chad Daybell, thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them in 2019 so that they could be together. She was also found guilty of stealing Social Security survivor benefits allocated for the care of her children after they went missing. Similarly, prosecutors in Maricopa County argued that she conspired with her brother to kill her estranged husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, so she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with Chad Daybell, an author of religious fiction books whom she married four months after the deadly shooting. Prosecutors further said she invoked their "twisted" religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother "religious authority" to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as "Ned." MORE: 'Doomsday mom' Lori Daybell found guilty in murder conspiracy trial In the first of her Arizona trials, Lori Daybell argued that her brother, Alex Cox, shot Vallow in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. She was then found guilty in a second trial of scheming with Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece. Three months after Vallow's killing, Boudreaux called 911 to report that someone driving by in a Jeep shot at his vehicle outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona, missing his head by inches. Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that Boudreaux continued to live in fear following the failed attempt on his life, wondering if Cox would "return to finish the job." Cox died from natural causes later in December 2019. Motives were money and sex, prosecutor says Lori Daybell, 51, did not take the stand or call any witnesses in either trial, in which she represented herself. In her closing statement, she argued that her family has been struck by tragedy and that she did not conspire to commit any crime. In remarks ahead of the sentencing, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Treena Kay disputed Lori Daybell's repeated claims that this was a "family tragedy." "A family tragedy does not involve the intentional killing of a person," Kay said. "A family tragedy does not involve working with an accomplice to commit first-degree premeditated murder. And a family tragedy does not involve conspiring with others to kill." She said Lori Daybell's motives were the same ones usually seen in murder cases: money and sex, saying that the deaths of Vallow and Boudreaux would have financially benefited her and her niece, respectively. "Although this defendant denies it, her text messages and her own actions show that these were her motives," Kay said. Lori Daybell continued to maintain her innocence in remarks ahead of the sentencing. "I want everyone to know that I mourn with all of you. I am sorry for your pain. Losing those close to you is painful, and I acknowledge all of the pain, and I do empathize, I feel it, too," she said. "If I was accountable for these crimes I would acknowledge it." She claimed she was prevented from presenting her side in the trials, which the judge said was "not true." "When she says that she couldn't get a fair trial in Maricopa County, that is not the truth," Beresky said ahead of handing down the sentence. She also questioned the necessity of additional life sentences on top of the multiple life sentences she's serving in Idaho. "Now I will serve seven life sentences -- will that be enough? Will that be enough?" she asked. To that point, the judge said, "Justice demands not only recognition of the pain inflicted, but a firm response that upholds the dignity of every victim harmed by the actions of someone who has shown blatant disregard for humanity." He said she has "left a wake of destruction" across multiple states and the "amount of contemplation, calculation, planning, manipulation that went into these crimes is unparalleled in my career." "Your powers of manipulation are profoundly destructive, one that undermines trust, distorts truth and can erode the very foundations of healthy relationships and society," he said. "The impact of your manipulation has been devastating, insidious and far-reaching and perhaps still unknown." The sentencing hearing comes after failed attempts at getting new trials on both counts. After being convicted of conspiring to kill Vallow, she also unsuccessfully tried to remove Judge Beresky from the case, claiming he was biased against her. She frequently clashed with the judge while representing herself during the trials. During the second trial, Beresky at one point removed her from the courtroom after she became combative during discussions about her character. The judge had warned that if she referred to herself as having "great character," that could open the door for the state to introduce evidence to rebut that character, including regarding her previous convictions in Idaho. Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children in separate trials in Fremont County, Idaho. Joshua "J.J." Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, went missing months after Charles Vallow was killed. Their remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Chad Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search. They were also found guilty of conspiring to kill Chad Daybell's first wife, Tamara Daybell, who died in October 2019 -- two weeks before Lori and Chad Daybell married in Hawaii. Chad Daybell was found guilty of murdering her. Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole, while Chad Daybell was sentenced to death for the three murders and now awaits execution on Idaho's death row. Emotional victim impact statements Several of Lori Daybell's relatives addressed the court ahead of the sentencing. In grief-stricken, at times angry remarks, they touched on the loss of Vallow as well as JJ, whom Lori Daybell and Vallow had adopted, and Tylee, a child from Lori Daybell's third marriage. Her eldest son, Colby Ryan, from her second marriage, remembered Vallow as a generous man. "My father, Charles Vallow, cared for his family. He took care of our family, and he made sure we had a good life," Ryan said. He said his mother told him Charles Vallow had died from a heart attack, before he learned the truth, and spoke about the pain of losing his father and then his siblings. "I'm here to tell you the effect that this has had on me. In simple terms, each one of my family members was taken from us all in one swoop," Ryan said. Regarding his mother, he said it "must be a very sad life to smile your way through all the pain you've caused." "Rather than being able to acknowledge the pain that she has caused, she would rather say that Charles, Tylee and JJ's deaths were a family tragedy and not her evil doing," he said. "Quite frankly, I believe that Lori Vallow herself is the family tragedy." One of Vallow's sisters, Susan Vallow, said the day her brother died "changed my life forever." "My brother's death was a deliberate act of evil and self-seeking financial gain. Your greed has caused so much pain to this day," she said virtually. Kay Woodcock, another one of Charles Vallow's sisters and JJ's biological grandmother, read a letter she wrote from the perspective of JJ in court. "I can't be here to read this letter, because I am dead. I was murdered by the defendant Lori Daybell, or as I used to call her, mom," she read. "See, there are a whole lot of tragedies that have happened to my family, and all of them are the result of my mom's actions." Vallow "never would have let her hurt me, and I know he died protecting me," the letter said. "I should be 13 years old now, but I'm forever seven," she read. At the end of the letter, she screamed at Lori Daybell, "I trusted you!" before breaking down in tears. MORE: 'Doomsday mom' Lori Daybell delivers closing argument in murder conspiracy trial Her husband, Larry Woodcock, his anger visceral, called Lori Daybell a "narcissist, psychopath, delusional murderer." "You're nothing, murderess," he said. "I can't stand you." Following remarks by several members of his family, including his siblings and current wife, Boudreaux addressed how the attempted murder has impacted him. "The betrayal by someone connected to my family has left me battling overwhelming emotions over the years," he said, his voice shaky. "I felt fear, paranoia. I lived with constant vigilance, loneliness, regret, sadness, depression, anger, heartache and embarrassment." He said he has chosen to forgive Lori Daybell so he can be a better father, husband, son, neighbor and friend. "But I had never seen any remorse or acknowledgement from Lori," he said.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
FACT FOCUS: Trump claims cashless bail increases crime, but data is inconclusive
As his administration faces mounting pressure to release Justice Department files related the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, President Donald Trump is highlighting a different criminal justice issue — cashless bail. He suggested in a Truth Social post this week that eliminating cash bail as a condition of pretrial release from jail has led to rising crime in U.S. cities that have enacted these reforms. However, studies have shown no clear link. Here's a closer look at the facts. TRUMP: 'Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!' THE FACTS: Data has not determined the impact of cashless bail on crime rates. But experts say it is incorrect to claim that there is an adverse connection. 'I don't know of any valid studies corroborating the President's claim and would love to know what the Administration offers in support,' said Kellen Funk, a professor at Columbia Law School who studies pretrial procedure and bail bonding. 'In my professional judgment I'd call the claim demonstrably false and inflammatory.' Jeff Clayton, executive director of the American Bail Coalition, the main lobbying arm of the cash bail industry, also pointed to a lack of evidence. 'Studies are inconclusive in terms of whether bail reforms have had an impact on overall crime numbers,' he said. 'This is due to pretrial crime being a small subset of overall crime. It is also difficult to categorize reforms as being 'cashless' or not, i.e., policies where preventative detention is introduced as an alternative to being held on bail.' Different jurisdictions, different laws In 2023, Illinois became the first state to completely eliminate cash bail when the state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law abolishing it. The move was part of an expansive criminal justice overhaul adopted in 2021 known as the SAFE-T Act. Under the change, a judge decides whether to release the defendant prior to their trial, weighing factors such as their criminal charges, if they could pose any danger to others and if they are considered a flight risk. Loyola University of Chicago's Center for Criminal Justice published a 2024 report on Illinois' new cashless bail policy, one year after it went into effect. It acknowledges that there is not yet enough data to know what impact the law has had on crime, but that crime in Illinois did not increase after its implementation. Violent and property crime declined in some counties. A number of other jurisdictions, including New Jersey, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., have nearly eliminated cash bail or limited its use. Many include exceptions for high-level crimes. Proponents of eliminating cash bail describe it as a penalty on poverty, suggesting that the wealthy can pay their way out of jail to await trial while those with fewer financial resources have to sit it out behind bars. Critics have argued that bail is a time-honored way to ensure defendants released from jail show up for court proceedings. They warn that violent criminals will be released pending trial, giving them license to commit other crimes. A lack of consensus Studies have shown mixed results regarding the impact of cashless bail on crime. Many focus on the recidivism of individual defendants rather than overall crime rates. A 2024 report published by the Brennan Center for Justice saw 'no statistically significant relationship' between bail reform and crime rates. It looked at crime rate data from 2015 through 2021 for 33 cities across the U.S., 22 of which had instituted some type of bail reform. Researchers used a statistical method to determine if crime rates had diverged in those with reforms and those without. Ames Grawert, the report's co-author and senior counsel in the Brennan Center's Justice Program, said this conclusion "holds true for trends in crime overall or specifically violent crime.' Similarly, a 2023 paper published in the American Economic Journal found no evidence that cash bail helps ensure defendants will show up in court or prevents crime among those who are released while awaiting trial. The paper evaluated the impact of a 2018 policy instituted by the Philadelphia's district attorney that instructed prosecutors not to set bail for certain offenses. A 2019 court decree in Harris County, Texas, requires most people charged with a misdemeanor to be released without bail while awaiting trial. The latest report from the monitoring team responsible for tracking the impact of this decision, released in 2024, notes that the number of people arrested for misdemeanors has declined by more than 15% since 2015. The number of those rearrested within one year has similarly declined, with rearrest rates remaining stable in recent years. Asked what data Trump was using to support his claim, the White House pointed to a 2022 report from the district attorney's office in Yolo County, California, that looked at how a temporary cashless bail system implemented across the state to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in courts and jails impacted recidivism. It found that out of 595 individuals released between April 2020 and May 2021 under this system, 70.6% were arrested again after they were released. A little more than half were rearrested more than once. A more recent paper, published in February by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, also explored the effects of California's decision to suspend most bail during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reports that implementation of this policy 'caused notable increases in both the likelihood and number of rearrests within 30 days.' However, a return to cash bail did not impact the number of rearrests for any type of offense. The paper acknowledges that other factors, such as societal disruption from the pandemic, could have contributed to the initial increase. Many contributing factors It is difficult to pinpoint specific explanations for why crime rises and falls. The American Bail Coalition's Clayton noted that other policies that have had a negative impact on crime, implemented concurrently with bail reforms, make it 'difficult to isolate or elevate one or more causes over the others.' Paul Heaton, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies criminal justice interventions, had a similar outlook. 'Certainly there are some policy levers that people look at — the size of the police force and certain policies around sentencing,' he said. 'But there's a lot of variation in crime that I think even criminologists don't necessarily fully understand.' ___ Find AP Fact Checks here:
