Police on Monday were continuing to investigate a violent crash outside an East Hollywood club where 36 people were injured and the driver wounded by gunfire.
Around 2 a.m. on Saturday, a driver plowed into a crowd outside of the Vermont Hollywood night club, injuring dozens of clubgoers, pedestrians and vendors on the sidewalk outside.
After the collision, the driver was pulled from the vehicle by the crowd and assaulted, with one person pulling a gun and shooting the driver, Los Angeles Police said.
While the gunman is still outstanding, the driver — identified as Fernando Ramirez — was taken into custody. Video from the scene showed Ramirez beaten bloody as police took him away.
Here’s what we know so far.
Who was the suspected driver?
Ramirez, 29, was a club patron who was thrown out, but returned to the area in a vehicle around 2 a.m., LAPD officials said. The vehicle hit street vendors and dozens of late-night clubgoers, causing multiple medical emergencies and stoking fear and anger among the crowd.
Bystanders pulled Ramirez from his vehicle and attacked him — video showed him being punched and kicked — and, at some point, he was shot, LAPD officials said.
On Sunday, he was listed in stable condition after being taken into surgery, police said. He was also arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon with force likely to produce great bodily injury.
Before the Saturday morning attack, Ramirez had already spent months behind bars.
On Jan. 10, 2020, he was sentenced to four years in prison after a jury found him guilty of battery with serious injury, violation of civil rights and a hate crime enhancement for attacking a Black Whole Foods employee.
However, an appeals court in January 2021 overturned part of the verdict after the court found a recorded conversation with an officer violated Ramirez’s Miranda rights. The appeals court reversed the civil rights violation and the hate crime enhancement and vacated the sentence, but upheld the aggravated battery conviction because it was “not affected by the Miranda error.”
In 2020, Ramirez was convicted of a 2019 battery upon a police officer and resisting arrest and got 180 days in jail.
In 2021, he was convicted of assault with great bodily injury and two counts of resisting arrest and received a sentence of 194 days in jail and a year of probation. That same year, he pleaded guilty to corporal injury upon a spouse and was sentenced to three years of probation with 234 days in jail.
Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney’s office, said Ramirez has a pending driving under the influence charge, and a separate domestic battery charge, including a violation of a protective order stemming from a 2022 incident, also pending in the Orange County courts.
Who is the suspected gunman?
Police said that after Ramirez was pulled from the vehicle, after it became lodged on top of food vendor equipment, someone pulled out a gun and shot him in the back.
Officer Norma Eisenman, an LAPD spokesperson, said on Sunday that the person who shot Ramirez remained at large. Police described the suspected gunman as male, Latino, about 5-foot-7 and 150 to 170 pounds. He was last seen wearing a blue Dodgers jacket, a light blue jersey with the number “5” and blue jeans. He had gauges — a type of body jewelry — in both ears and a goatee. Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.
A photo of the man, (center in the blue shirt) accused of shooting a driver outside an East Hollywood club. (LAPD)
(LAPD)
What happened to the victims?
At least 36 victims sustained injuries ranging from minor pain to serious fractures and lacerations. Several individuals were struck by the vehicle, and some were briefly trapped beneath it. At least 23 people were hospitalized.
Given the size of the crowd, LAPD Capt. Ben Fernandes said the incident could have easily spiraled into a mass casualty event.
“Quite honestly, I believe it is a miracle,” Fernandes told NBC-4 News.
One witness told ABC-7 News that he saw dozens of people on the ground after the crash. Another said it was “like a movie.”
“You see shoes flying, you see change, money, there’s hot dog stands that were outside the bar … they got hit,” the witness said.
Eduardo Lopez, who was working at his taco truck down the street from the nightclub early Saturday, said he heard the crash and the subsequent screams.
He told NBC-4 he saw people running and “a lot of people hurt.”
The club issued a statement following the incident.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic incident that occurred early Saturday morning outside our venue,” the Vermont Hollywood club posted in a statement online and outside its doors. “We are working closely with law enforcement to ensure the person responsible for this horrific act is held fully accountable.”
