A 29-year-old man accused of plowing his car into a crowd outside an East Hollywood nightclub on Saturday morning, injuring more than 30 people, has an extensive criminal history in neighboring Orange County, including a previous conviction for an unprovoked attack on a Laguna Beach grocery store employee that he told an officer was driven by racial hatred.
Fernando Ramirez was pulled from his car and shot by an unidentified gunman after allegedly driving a Nissan Versa into a crowd outside The Vermont Hollywood, a music venue located on West Santa Monica Boulevard near Vermont Avenue.
Ramirez reportedly had been kicked out of the venue for fighting, then returned was kicked out again for being intoxicated and disruptive, according to police and news reports. He responded, police say, by intentionally driving into a crowd of pedestrians outside the nightclub and colliding with several food carts.
Bystanders pulled Ramirez from his vehicle and attacked him, police said. A man came from across the street, pulled out a firearm and shot Ramirez in the lower back, police added.
At least 36 people were injured in the crash, including some who were struck by the vehicle and some who were briefly trapped underneath the car. The injuries ranged from minor pain to serious fractures and lacerations, police said. At least seven people were initially listed in critical condition.
On Monday, investigators asked for the public’s help in identifying the man who shot Ramirez. They described him as a male Hispanic, around 5-foot-6 or 5-foot-7, 150 to 170 pounds with a goatee and gauges in both ears, who was wearing a blue Dodgers jacket, a light blue jersey with the number “5” and blue jeans.
Ramirez was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. The extent of his injuries from the beating and shooting were unclear.
Orange County prosecutors confirmed on Monday that Ramirez has an extensive criminal background, including several criminal cases filed against him since 2014.
On June 15, 2019, Ramirez ran up behind a 26-year-old African American grocery store employee and sucker punched him, breaking the employee’s nose and damaging two of his front teeth. A couple witnessed the attack at a Laguna Beach store and called 911.
Speaking to an officer in a recorded conversation as he was being driven to a police station, Ramirez admitted in explicit terms laced with racial epithets that he punched the employee because he was Black and that he hated Black people.
That recording led a jury to convict Ramirez of a hate crime on top of felony battery. But an appellate court found that Ramirez’s comments to the officer about his racial motivation for the attack on the grocery store employee were improperly obtained by police after Ramirez had received his Miranda advisement and invoked his right to an attorney. The appellate judges threw out the civil rights conviction and hate crime enhancement. What had been a six-year prison sentence was reduced to four years.
Since then, Ramirez has been arrested multiple times for domestic violence, assault and DUI related allegations.
In 2021, court records show, Ramirez assaulted a woman who was found by deputies lying face up in extreme pain in the Ola Vista and Avenida Rosa intersection in San Clemente. A witness described Ramirez grabbing the woman by her hair, throwing her head first into a cinderblock wall, then dragging her into the street by her hair and throwing her down. A deputy later testified that Ramirez resisted arrest by ignoring police commands, flailing about and being unable or unwilling to walk on his own.
As part of a plea deal, Ramirez’s jail sentence for the assault case was stayed and he was ordered to spend a year on probation and to take part in a batterers’ treatment program and community service. A misdemeanor domestic violence case, also in 2021, led to a 234-day jail sentence, court records show.
Ramirez still has two open court cases in Orange County, records show. One stems from a DUI arrest in Fountain Valley in August 2024. The other is another domestic violence case from January 2022.
An Orange County prosecutor in a sentencing report filed in 2020 — before many of the more recent cases were filed against Ramirez — described an arrest history that included “assaults while in custody, domestic violence, child endangerment, gang-related activity and racial tension in custody. Ramirez, the prosecutor wrote, “has proved to be violent to strangers and family alike and clearly has a lack of concern for the safety of others.”
Police are asking anyone with information regarding the crash or the shooting to call the LAPD’s Rampart station at 213-484-3424. Callers who wish to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or go to lacrimestoppers.org