Crime & Safety

Updated: Five Venice Boardwalk Car Victims Released From Hospital

The hit and run occurred early Saturday evening when a car was driven at high speed on the the Venice boardwalk. Police have arrested a 38-year-old man.

By City News Service

Updated 3:05 p.m: All five patients who were taken to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center from Saturday's gruesome incident in Venice have been treated and released, the hospital said at midafternoon.

Two males and three females were taken to UCLA from the Ocean Front Walk scene.

The woman who died, Alice Gruppioni, had been taken by paramedics to Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center's Marina campus, at Marina Del Rey, and she died there, the coroner's office said. A Facebook page was created Sunday afternoon in her honor.

Updated: The woman killed in Saturday's bloody vehicular rampage on Venice Beach has been identified by Italian newspapers as the newlywed daughter of an Italian businessman from Bologna, Italy.

Alice Gruppioni, 32, died with her injured husband at her side at a Los Angeles hospital, the newspaper La Republicca reported. The groom, Christian Casadei, suffered minor injuries in the mayhem.

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The pair had been married in Italy two weeks ago.

Gruppioni reportedly ran a family business in her hometown, Rastignano, a village just south of Bologna. La Republicca reported that she and her husband were building a house there.

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Gruppioni was the daughter of Valerio Gruppioni, a businessman and former president of the Bologna soccer team.

Family members were rushing from Italy to Los Angeles, the newspaper reported, and an official from the Italian consulate office in L.A. was at the hospital as well.

Original: A 38-year-old man named Nathan Louis Campbell was arrested on a murder charge after a Dodge Avenger drove down Ocean Front Walk, plowing into a dozen people and killing an Italian woman on her honeymoon, police said.

Campbell's hometown was not available, but jail records show he was booked for suspicion of murder at 2:43 a.m., and was held today on a $1 million bail.

Alice Gruppioni, 32, of Italy, died following the crash, said coroner's investigator Kristy McCracken. An autopsy was pending for the woman, who was at the beach for her honeymoon.

The mass casualty incident was reported at 6:01 p.m. Saturday in the 100 block of Dudley Avenue, according to Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Another victim remained in critical condition, two were in serious condition and eight were being treated for less-serious injuries, LAPD Lt. Andy Nieman said.

A number of the injured were carried to emergency vehicles on stretchers.

Witnesses said the driver of the car -- described as a 2008 to 2010 black or dark blue Dodge Avenger -- seemed to purposely aim at pedestrians as he swerved on and off the curb.

A man who identified himself as "Justin" said he was selling art from his booth when he heard a "scraping" sound to his left and saw a car "careening a bit out of control. It took out a whole booth of sunglasses," he said. "Like smash, like you see in a movie -- like a fruit stand smash."

"I'm kind of playing chicken with him, fight or flight," Justin said. "I ran but not before I saw him hit three other people and, you know, take off down the block at like 40, running people over and leaving a wake of destruction," he said.

The suspect began his deadly path of destruction on Dudley Avenue and sped south near Sunset Avenue, Neiman said.

The man abandoned the car at Ocean Park Boulevard and Beverly Avenue in Santa Monica, about two miles away. According to Neiman, the suspect walked into the Santa Monica police station, where he was questioned and later arrested.

An LAPD bomb-sniffing dog was called to check the abandoned car for explosive devices in what Neiman termed "an abundance of caution ... based on (the suspect's) mannerisms."



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