A vehicle drove into a crowd outside a Los Angeles nightclub early Saturday morning, injuring 30 people, according to California authorities.
Los Angeles firefighters responded to reports of a crash into a crowd of people outside The Vermont Hollywood music venue at around 2 a.m., with one official describing the scene as very “chaotic.”
“They drove through a taco stand, through the valet podium, and then through the crowd of people that were waiting to go inside,” said Capt. Adam VanGerpen, public information officer for the Los Angeles City Fire Department.
The driver, who police said before the incident was kicked out of the nightclub for being disruptive, was then pulled from the car and handcuffed, before being “beaten” by bystanders and shot in the back by a gunman who fled the scene. That gunman, a male who was wearing a blue jersey at the time, is still on the loose and should be considered “armed and dangerous,” said Jeff Lee, public information officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.
According to CNN, police believe the driver was intoxicated and beyond that there was no criminal intent or connection to terrorism.
Eyewitness reports revealed a grisly scene, with multiple people “bleeding out” following the crash.
“We look out the club, and it’s a car into the hole right there,” one person told NBC News. “And then it’s crazy, because people everywhere, laying down, unconscious, people bleeding out and stuff.”
Seven people injured outside the East Hollywood nightclub on Santa Monica Boulevard are in critical condition, six are in serious condition, and 10 are in fair condition, according to the LAFD. An additional seven patients refused transport to hospitals after assessment on the scene.
The chaotic scene unraveled just hours after a deadly explosion at a Los Angeles sheriff’s training center on Friday morning. Three officers were killed in the explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training facility, which houses the sheriff department’s special enforcement bureau and arson explosives detail, including the bomb squad.
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The exact cause of the explosion is under investigation, with Sheriff Robert Luna saying “there’s a lot more that we don’t know than we do know.”
“Our intent is to look at this from the very beginning and figure out what is it exactly that caused this tragic event,” the sheriff continued on Friday, adding that the incident represented the largest loss of life for the department since 1857.
