A driver accused of intentionally plowing his car into a crowd outside a Los Angeles nightclub has been charged with 74 counts, including 37 counts of attempted murder.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges at a news conference Tuesday.
“The defendant’s brazen and destructive actions, as alleged in the criminal complaint, have caused unimaginable harm to dozens of innocent people,” he said.
Early Saturday morning, Fernando Ramirez, 29, intentionally drove his car onto the sidewalk near The Vermont Hollywood, a popular venue in East Hollywood, prosecutors say.
Partygoers were leaving the venue at the end of a reggae hip-hop event when the car rammed into them. The car came to a stop after colliding with several food carts, which became lodged underneath the car, police say.
A total of 37 people were hurt, with injuries ranging from minor scrapes to serious fractures and cuts to broken bones, according to the DA’s office. Some people were briefly trapped beneath the car.
Aside from the attempted murder charges, Ramirez also faces 37 counts of assault with a deadly weapon in connection with Saturday’s incident. If convicted, he faces multiple life sentences.
Bystanders attacked Ramirez, and during the fight, a man flashed a gun and shot Ramirez once in the lower back, according to police. The man fled and police were unable to identify him as of Monday.
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.
A 2024 drunken driving case and 2022 domestic violence charge were pending at the time of the nightclub crash, according to records.
Ramirez was out on bail on a separate case when he rammed into the busy crowd, prosecutors say.
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