Santa Monica Man Kills 9, injures nearly 50, when Car Plows Through Market

By Jorge Casuso and Oliver Lukacs

July 16 -- In a scene that resembled a Middle East car bombing, an elderly driver plowed through a crowded Farmers Market Wednesday afternoon, unleashing a wave of terror and destruction that left nine dead, including a three-year-old girl, and nearly 50 injured, 13 of them critically.

The driver -- Russell Weller, 86, of Santa Monica -- appeared stiff as his '92 Buick LaSabre headed westbound on Arizona Avenue after turning from Fourth Street, reaching speeds of between 30 and 100 miles an hour, crashing through food stands and leaving a nearly three-block stretch of death in its wake.

Witnesses described what sounded like an explosion shortly before 2 p.m., followed by a chorus of screams punctuated by a wailing car horn, as bodies were hurled through the air or dragged, before the car -- its windshield and front end smashed -- came to a halt near Ocean Avenue. What looked like shoes were on its roof.

Weller, who appeared lucid when he exited the car with a cane, told police he couldn’t stop the vehicle. "His statement is that he possibly hit the gas instead of the brakes," said Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr.

A longtime booster of the Santa Monica Library and former high school tutor, Weller was taken to a hospital where a blood test detected no traces of alcohol or medication, Butts said. He was released after being held for questioning at the Santa Monica Police Station.

Police also are sifting through the testimony of more that 100 eyewitnesses in an effort to determine Weller's intent, Butts said.

"This is the most horrific scene I've ever seen in 30 years in law enforcement," Butts told The Lookout. "It's totally surreal."

"I have a horrible sense of sadness, and I'm sure everyone else feels the same way," said Mayor Richard Bloom. "It's a terrible tragedy, and my thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the victims."

As fat drops of rain fell and seven helicopters circled overhead, witnesses tried to grasp what had just occurred amidst the flowers and colorful fruits of the popular market, which was about to close.

Fabrizio Insoler, who was on his way to the bank, was the first to spot a tragedy in the making. He was waiting to turn left from Fourth onto Arizona when the Buick behind him turned and kept going, bumping a parked Mercedes and accelerating.

"I see people flying," Insoler said. "He was accelerating. He didn't slow. He just went straight through."

"It was like a wave going down the street," said witness John Goldsby. "I looked up and there was a burgundy Buick picking up speed with a guy on the hood. He was accelerating…

"The screaming, it was like it just moved down the street," Goldsby said. "People on the windshield, underneath the car. One woman was screaming about her baby."

Jesse Moio, who was strolling down the Promenade with her friend, heard screams, then spotted bodies, as a scene of blood and devastation unfolded before her.

"There were all these bodies laying everywhere," she said. "It was just so scary. Different types of people all thrown together and laid out there…. There were girls walking by panting, there were older women crying, teenagers crying."

Moio heard screams and saw a woman beside a small body covered in yellow.

"She was hyperventilating, screaming," Moio said. "They took her in one of the trailers, and she was holding the baby. When she came out there was blood on her."

Bahram Manahedgi, 50, who was buying cheese at he market, said he saw the car barrel through then come to rest with one person on the hood and a woman crushed beneath it, according to a report in the Associated Press.

Manahedgi said he pulled the driver out. "He was an old man. His eyes were open and he was alive. I said, 'Do you know what the hell you did?' He said, 'No.' I just opened the door. I pulled him out."

A crowd gathered around the car and "wanted to beat him up," Manahedgi told the AP. "I said, 'He's an old man, leave him alone.'"

Megan Sheehy, general manager of Locanda del Lago restaurant, ran outside after hearing what she thought were gunshots to find what resembled a natural disaster.

"It was just strange, like a trail of people, vegetables and tents, just collapsed," Sheehy told the Associated Press. "It was like a hurricane just came down the center of the street."

In what resembled the aftermath of a terrorist attack, more than 100 police and medical personal descended on the crash site, quickly setting up a triage where victims were laid out on orange tarps. The more critically injured were lifted onto stretchers and taken to ambulances.

Victims were delivered to local hospitals by ambulance and helicopter, including the UCLA level-one trauma medical center, which went into a “disaster mode,” and Saint Johns Health Center.

The last to be taken were the dead, whose bodies lay covered, awaiting investigators from the coroners office.

Behind the yellow tape that cordoned off the four-block stretch, friends and relatives of potential victims desperately sought word of their loved ones. Some were comforted by grief counselors from the American Red Cross, which set up a hotline for families of victims at 310-394-3773.

Herb Roney, chair of the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees, said he has known Weller, who is his neighbor, for 30 years.

"He's just a person that you would want as a father, as a grandfather and as a neighbor," Roney told the AP. "He's a very, very nice person. All I can think of is that he had a slight stroke, or maybe a heart condition suddenly came up or something of this nature, or maybe a mechanical failure (of his car).

"Russ would not, in any way, hurt anyone," Roney told the news service. "He's a strong member of his church, he believes in the goodness of people, and I'm sure he's deeply concerned right now about everything.

"It's a very, very tragic situation, both for the people who were hurt and the tragedy in this community. And I'm sure Russ, right now, is undergoing tremendous trauma himself."

Skip Rimer, the former editor of The Outlook, could see from the balcony outside his Downtown office what he called the worst local tragedy he could recall.

"It looked like a war zone," said Rimer, who worked at the paper from 1984 until it folded in 1998. "I can't remember anything like that, where so many people were hurt. I've never heard of that many people killed in Santa Monica in one day."