A man who the authorities say drove into a group of Black people at a Southern California hotel, injuring one person, has been accused of a hate crime, prosecutors said on Monday.
The man, Dennis Wyman, 42, of Redondo Beach, struck an off-duty security guard after he yelled “racial insults” at the group last month, the Torrance Police Department said in a statement.
Mr. Wyman faces two charges of assault with a deadly weapon and one charge of hit-and-run driving resulting in serious injury to another person, “with the special allegation that the alleged crimes were hate crimes,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Wyman had a lawyer.
The police said that, not long before midnight on June 29, Mr. Wyman began hurling insults at a small group of Black people in a parking lot at the Staybridge Suites, a hotel that the group was visiting in Torrance, a coastal city in southwest Los Angeles County.
Mr. Wyman then entered his car, a Chevrolet El Camino, and drove it toward the group, the police said.
An off-duty security guard at the parking lot fired several shots before he was struck by the car, according to the police. Mr. Wyman then fled the scene, the police said. The guard, 50, was treated by the Torrance Fire Department before he was taken to a hospital for injuries to his lower extremities. He was the only person struck and was in stable condition on Tuesday, said Sgt. Alexander Martinez of the Torrance Police Department.
The police said that detectives identified Mr. Wyman as a suspect and that he was arrested during a traffic stop on July 8.
His arraignment, which began on Monday, was expected to continue on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Torrance. Mr. Wyman’s bail was set at $115,000, the district attorney’s office said. If convicted, he faces a possible maximum sentence of 12 years in prison.
The authorities provided no details about a possible motivation.
Though the police said the people at the hotel were guests and not protesters, the charges come after dozens of similar incidents in recent weeks of drivers accelerating into crowds at demonstrations across the country against racism and police violence. At least two other cases have resulted in charges this month: A man was charged with vehicular homicide in Seattle, and a woman was charged with criminal recklessness, a felony, in Bloomington, Ind.
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July 14, 2020 at 11:24PM
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