According to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department update, the 22-year-old driver of the car that struck a group of law enforcement recruits running in formation on Wednesday morning has been detained on suspicion of attempting to murder a peace officer.
According to jail records, Nicholas Joseph Gutierrez was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and is currently being held on a $2 million bail with a potential Friday morning court date. According to the sheriff’s department, Gutierrez was the only person in the car at the time of the collision.
25 people were hurt after Gutierrez rammed his car into a group of police enforcement recruits in the Los Angeles County area, five of whom were listed in critical condition, according to authorities. According to the sheriff’s office’s initial news release, 16 other recruits got minor injuries, while four more recruits suffered moderate injuries. According to Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Sheila Kelliher, Gutierrez also had minor wounds. Everybody was transferred to nearby hospitals.
The state of those who were hurt has not been updated. According to the sheriff’s office, the case is still under investigation, and homicide investigators plan to submit it this Friday for review by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. They said that other charges are still pending.
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In an effort to learn more about Gutierrez’s legal representation, CNN has gotten in touch with the district attorney’s office and the California Highway Patrol, which is in charge of the crash investigation. According to early reports, it was an accident.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva had stated in a news conference on Wednesday that the initial assessment of the incident was that it appeared to have been “a horrible accident.” According to Villanueva, the driver who was traveling the wrong way showed no signs of intoxication and blew a zero on a Breathalyzer test that was conducted on the spot. The sheriff reported that there were no skid marks to be seen at the scene of the collision.
Villanueva described the scene as like an airplane crash since there were so many victims scattered throughout in various levels of injury. “It was a fairly traumatic experience for everyone.” On November 16, 2022, in Whittier, California, an SUV that struck two Los Angeles County sheriff’s recruits was badly damaged. Around daybreak on Wednesday, a car struck six Los Angeles County sheriff’s recruits who were out for a training run; some of them suffered significant injuries, according to authorities.
25 people are hurt, five of them badly, after a car crashes into a group of police enforcement recruits in the Los Angeles region. The recruits are all from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, according to Kelliher’s initial statement.
However, according to Villanueva, those hurt include trainees from the Pasadena, Glendale, and Bell police departments as well as the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Although they were present, police recruits from UCLA and El Segundo were unharmed.
LASD Dep. Recruit class assigned to the STARS Center Training Academy, Whittier, were struck by a vehicle at approx. 6:26 am, 10600 blk of Mills Ave during their run. Multiple injuries, & all victims transported to local hospitals.
For further: https://t.co/vv1ITCvWmp pic.twitter.com/xioe7OlfiY— LA County Sheriffs (@LASDHQ) November 16, 2022
The 75 recruits were participating in what Captain Ted McDonald of the sheriff’s department training bureau called a “standard run” as part of the agency’s 22-week training program. They were all dressed in white T-shirts and green shorts. They were racing in four lines and were being followed by two safety cars when they were struck, according to McDonald.
According to officials, the collision happened roughly 500 feet from a fire station. According to Los Angeles Fire Chief Anthony Marrone, the prompt hospital transport of the four most seriously hurt victims probably saved their lives. The incident, according to Kelliher, was “difficult to observe since these young individuals are about to go put themselves at risk in their careers. And who knows that you might be in danger when you’re practicing for it.”