Prosecutor: Driver Tried To Kill Trump Supporters
The organizer of a Southern California rally was charged with attempted murder on Tuesday for driving her car into counterprotesters and running over a woman’s head.
Tatiana Turner deliberately drove into a crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters with the intent to kill the woman and also broke a man’s leg, Orange County prosecutors said.
“She positioned her vehicle to be used as a backup weapon and she used that vehicle as a deadly weapon, willing to injure and kill those who stood in her way,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.
A defense lawyer said Turner tried to get help from deputies on Saturday in Yorba Linda after her group was met by a crowd of counterprotesters.
Turner saw people with guns and feared for her life when she got into her car, attorney Ludlow Creary II said.
Creary claimed she was trying to get away and didn’t intend to hit anyone.
“There were actions that caused her to become fearful for her life and that’s when she accelerated,” Creary said.
Turner, 40, made her first appearance in court remotely from jail and was ordered held on $1 million bail.
A not guilty plea was entered on her behalf by her lawyer.
The incident is one of more than 100 in which motorists have plowed into demonstrations since late May, according to Ari Weil, deputy director on the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago.
Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said it may be difficult for prosecutors to prove Turner tried to kill someone because it requires showing she was more than just reckless or negligent.
“When you’re talking about attempted murder, you’re talking a requirement that the state prove that … she drove into the crowd with the true purpose to cause someone’s death,” Armour said.
“That says something about their motivations, their character, their state of mind. It’s a value judgment. It’s a moral judgment.”
The felony complaint said Turner had the “specific intent to kill” the woman who she ran over.
The victim has not been named. Authorities said she was hospitalized with major injuries and expected to survive.
Turner, who has a felony record for drug sales and domestic violence, is also charged with six counts of assault with a deadly weapon, including one count for causing great bodily injury, mayhem and two counts of the use of pepper spray by a felon.
Turner’s group, Urban Organizers Coalition, had planned a protest on Saturday at the Yorba Linda Library, about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
The DA referred to Turner’s group as “professional militant organizers.”
Turner was seen in videos waving a baton and spraying what appeared to be pepper spray earlier in the protest.
Some members of her group had helmets and riot shields.
Creary said the charges were excessive.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
