LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles prosecutors announced felony charges Tuesday in connection with a car crash outside a nightclub over the weekend that injured at least 37 people and led to the driver being shot.
Fernando Ramirez, 29, was charged with 37 counts of attempted murder and 37 counts of assault with a deadly weapon against the driver. If convicted, such charges could lead to a maximum life sentence.
Partygoers were leaving the Vermont Hollywood venue at the end of a reggae hip-hop event early Saturday when a vehicle rammed into the crowd along a busy boulevard in East Hollywood.
The car came to a stop after colliding with several food carts, which became lodged underneath the vehicle, and bystanders attacked the driver, according to police. Injuries ranged from minor to serious fractures and lacerations, and some people were briefly trapped beneath the vehicle.
“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” LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said. He added that eight people suffered “great bodily injury.”
Among those injured, 23 people were transported to hospitals, said Ronnie Villanueva, Interim Fire Chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
“When he drove that car onto that sidewalk, he aimed it at a whole sea of pedestrians that were in front of him on the sidewalk at 2 a.m.,” Hochman said.
Ramirez is accused of intentionally driving his car onto the sidewalk. A phone number for Ramirez could not be found in an online database search, and the public defender’s office has not responded to requests for comment on whether one of its attorneys is representing him.
“This was an unprovoked act of violence that injured 36 people, some critically,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said. “It’s truly a miracle that no one was killed that day.”
Ramirez was later found to have been shot in the lower back, but authorities have not identified the suspected gunman.
Los Angeles police released surveillance photos Monday from cameras near the crash showing a man with a goatee wearing a blue Dodgers jacket and a light blue jersey with the number “5.”
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 drunken driving case and 2022 domestic violence charge were pending at the time of the nightclub crash, according to records.
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