Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005 | 11:49 a.m.
The 27-year-old man who used a Buick LeSabre to mow down a crowd of tourists on a Strip sidewalk Wednesday was wanted by California authorities for allegedly severely beating his mother and threatening her with a butcher knife before driving off in her car on Monday, police said this morning.
Authorities didn't know where Stephen Ressa was until Wednesday night when he was arrested after crashing the car on the Strip.
Patricia Del Rosario was passing out fliers on the Strip about 5:15 p.m. Wednesday when she noticed the burgundy sedan speeding north on Las Vegas Boulevard toward her. Then, she said, she froze in horror as the car jumped the curb and started knocking people into the air around her, she said.
"The car was right here," Del Rosario said, brushing her pants leg with her left hand. "I was lucky."
Del Rosario said she knelt to comfort one of the more than a dozen people who were left sprawled on the sidewalk in front of Paris Las Vegas and Bally's among the screaming crowd.
One of the people who was hit, 52-year-old man Gordon Kusayanagi of Hollister, Calif., was pronounced dead about 6 p.m. at University Medical Center, authorities said.
At least 13 other people were treated for injuries at UMC and other hospitals. Three were reported to be in critical condition. Hospital officials said they believed all of the victims were from out of town.
Cheryl Persinger, spokeswoman for UMC, said a 60-year-old man and 26-year-old woman remained in critical condition at the hospital this morning.
Two other men, ages 30 and 25, were in good condition this morning and four other people -- believed to all be women in their 20s -- were treated and discharged from UMC, the hospital's spokeswoman Cheryl Persinger said.
Another five people were taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. and there were reports that one victim was taken by private car to Desert Springs Hospital, which is located on Flamingo Road several blocks east of the crash site.
Glenda McCartney, director of marketing for Sunrise hospital, said this morning that one man injured in the incident remained in critical condition and two women were in serious condition.
Two other women were treated and released from Sunrise, McCartney said.
After driving his mother's car through the crowd on the sidewalk, Ressa didn't stop until he crashed head-on into the end of a short wall separating the eastside of Las Vegas Blvd South. from the escalator to the pedestrian walkway over the Strip at Flamingo Road, Metro Deputy Chief Greg McCurdy said.
"Evidence at the scene, as well as statements from victims and witnesses all indicate that the suspect intentionally and deliberately drove onto the sidewalk with the intended purpose of striking the victims," Metro Lt. Tom Monahan.
Witnesses told police that Ressa accelerated while driving on the sidewalk, McCurdy said this morning.
During an interview with police, Ressa appeared "lucid and very aware of what was going on" and made "bizarre comments," McCurdy said, but declined to say exactly what those comments were.
Ressa was booked into the Clark County jail Wednesday night, charged with one count of murder and 12 counts of attempted murder, Metro Lt. Tom Monahan. Ressa's blood was drawn to be tested for drug and alcohol content, police said.
Before alleging going on a rampage, Ressa had been serving weekends in jail in Rialto for for drug-related offenses, Rialto Police Det. Sgt. Reinhard Burkholder said this morning.
Ressa pleaded guilty to drunken driving in July 1997 and to a charge of disorderly conduct while under the influence three years later, according to court records from San Bernardino County. He was convicted in May on charges of possessing marijuana for sale. He was also charged in March with driving without registration or proof of insurance as well as speeding. The outcome of those charges were not immediately known.
Ressa had been living with his parents in that California city, near San Bernadino, "off and on" until Monday, when he beat his mother with his hands and fists "around the head and face area" and threatened her with a butcher knife then took her car, Burkholder said.
The woman, Christine Ressa, believed to be in her early 50's, remained hospitalized for at least two days because she had "a lot of swelling and bleeding to the face area," Burkholder said.
Calls to Christine Ressa's home were not immediately returned this morning. Burkholder said he did not know whether she had been released from the hospital as of this morning.
Stephen Ressa's whereabouts were unknown to authorities until Wednesday evening, Burkholder said.
Detectives from Rialto were planning to arrive in Las Vegas today to confer with Metro Police, Burkholder said.
By law a probable cause hearing for Ressa is required within 48 hours of his arrest before a Las Vegas Justice of the Peace at which time a decision as to whether there is enough evidence present to detain him and bail will be addressed.
Metro Officer Martin Wright, 42, was off-duty and eating dinner at the Mon Ami Gabi restaurant along the Strip in front of Paris Las Vegas when car plowed through the crowd.
Wright said he was speaking to the general manager of the restaurant when they heard screaming out in front of the restaurant so they both ran outside.
"He just ran out in the middle of the conversation. I thought it was a fight," Wright said.
Wright followed him out the restaurant and saw "nothing but bodies."
"I heard a lot of screaming," he said.
Then he saw the wrecked Buick just down the street -- with Ressa standing next to it.
"He was just standing there -- there was no reaction from him," Wright said.
About 15 people were pointing to Ressa at the scene, including one off-duty New York City police officer on vacation in Las Vegas, "saying: 'He's the one! He's the one!"' he said.
Wright said he ran down the street and arrested Ressa.
"He didn't resist," Wright said.
He said after he arrested Ressa he called for emergency vehicles.
"I was doing what anyone else would have done," he said.
After the crash Las Vegas Boulevard between Flamingo Road and Harmon Avenue was closed for about five hours.
Although some witnesses and passersby said police had been chasing the Buick just prior to it hitting the people on the sidewalk, Metro officials said they had not been pursuing the car at the time.
Emergency vehicles appeared to have a difficult time getting to the scene because it happened during the rush hour and also because of the rush of onlookers who surged toward the scene.
At least 14 ambulances from both American Medical Response and MedicWest responded to the scene, officials from the companies said.
A row of three motorcycle officers nudged its way through the traffic jam on the Strip, heading toward one of the city's busiest intersections during one of the busiest weekday hours.
"Please pull over to the right!" blared the voice of one officer through a bullhorn mounted on his bike, as the three slowly make their way east on Flamingo Road toward Las Vegas Boulevard.
The driver of a red sedan didn't immediately do as he was told, so when the police officers finally make their way past, the last in line turned his head and shouted, "If it's not too much trouble!"
The three motorcycle officers then guided their front tires up onto a concrete median and sped to the intersection where the chaotic but almost surreal scene awaited them.
Crowds were shoved against a low wall separating the throng from a nearly empty section of street in front of the Bellagio, across the Strip from the crash scene. Above them, a monolithic video billboard touted an upcoming $1 million blackjack tournament while "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" played over the loudspeaker.
More masses huddled together on the elevated pedestrian walkway to get a glimpse of the Buick, which was pointing north toward Flamingo and jammed squarely against the far edge of an ornate, concrete guardrail. Its windshield was shattered in circular, spider-web patterns, apparently from where people had been thrown up against it.
Metro Police officers in their tan uniforms and Bellagio employees in maroon suit coats and black slacks lined the street for about a quarter-mile, occasionally chasing away onlookers who hopped the wall or ducked under yellow crime-scene tape to get a better peek.
One woman sipped from a foot-tall frozen daiquiri as she watched emergency crews and police at work. Others took pictures with their digital cameras and cell phones. A young man whose breath smelled of alcohol cat-called to a professionally dressed woman on the other side of the wall who had just finished speaking to police.
"Hey! You're a detective?"
Some in the crowd, even those who didn't see the accident, were engaged in analysis and debate.
"I've never seen anything like this, and I'm from Compton," says visitor Mary Charles, taking a break from her efforts to reach the other side of the blocked street. "I'm from the inner city."
Some tourists took photographs or held video cameras, capturing the flashing emergency lights as dozens of officers gathered evidence left in a fragmented trail along the sidewalk.
David Cooper from Great Britain said he was in his Flamingo hotel room and saw news of the accident on television. He raced to the yellow police tape in front of Bally's.
"We've been here a couple days, and never expected to see anything like this," Cooper said.
Spectators to a tragedy, the tourists, who minutes earlier had been happily hopping from one hotel to the next, now stood somberly as ambulance and fire department paramedics triaged the victims and began preparing them for transport to Southern Nevada hospitals.
Sun reporters David Kihara and Dan Kulin contributed to this article.
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