Las Vegas NowPolice Believe Driver Intentionally Hit Las Vegas Strip Pedestrians

(Sept. 23, 2005) -- Twenty-seven-year-old Stephen Ressa is behind bars after police say he drove down the sidewalk of Las Vegas Boulevard and ran over 14 people.

Today, investigators think Ressa may have tried to kill his mother in Rialto, California before stealing her car and getting high on methampetamine. 

(Sept. 21, 2005) -- A car plowed into a group of pedestrians along the crowded Las Vegas Strip on Wednesday, killing one and critically injuring at least four others.

The car jumped the curb about 5:15 p.m. and drove into pedestrians walking in front of the Bally's and Paris hotel-casinos on Las Vegas Boulevard, police and fire officials said.  In all, 14 people were hit.  One man died enroute to the hospital.

After striking the pedestrians, the burgundy Buick crashed into a nearby wall and came to a stop in a landscaped area in front of Bally's.

An off-duty police officer who heard screams from the accident ran to the scene and helped arrest 27-year-old Stephen Ressa of Rialto, California.  The car he was driving was reported stolen by his mother who also lives in Rialto.

Police say evidence at the scene as well as statements from witnesses indicate that the suspect may have done this intentionally. 

Ressa has been booked into the Clark County Dentention Center, charged with one count of murder and 12 counts of attempted murder.

The Las Vegas Strip was closed in both directions for five hours as a dozen ambulances and scores of police officers and firefighters tended to the injured and interviewed witnesses.

Thousands of onlookers lined police tape that stretched hundreds of feet down the Strip.