Dennis Wyman of Redondo Beach, California was Charged with Hate Crime After running over black people with his car

On Monday, a California man was charged with assault for a hate crime committed against a group of black people. He was allegedly said to have driven his car into the group of Black people for no reason last month.

The 42-year-old Dennis Wyman of Redondo Beach was said to have struck down a 50-year-old security guard who was off duty. Reports also said that Wyman was yelling racial insults at the group after he knocked down the off-duty security guard, according to a Torrance Police Department spokeswoman in a statement.

Dennis Wyman arrest record

According to witnesses, there were no specific details as to why the group gathered in the first place or how many people were in the group in a hotel parking lot. Reports said that the wounded off-duty security guard was the father of a man in the group. Before he was knocked down by Wyman, the guard fired a few shots at the car which was speeding towards the group.

The police said that shortly before midnight on June 29, Wyman started hurling insults at a group of Black people at the parking lot of Staybridge Suites, a hotel located in Torrance. According to the police, the people at the hotel’s parking lot were guests and not protesters.

Although Wyman, who is white, fled the scene after the guard had been injured and taken to a hospital, he was later apprehended by the authorities. Wyman was arrested on July 8 during a traffic stop. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon which resulted in great bodily injuries, hit and run, and hate crimes, according to the district attorney’s office.

He is currently being held on a $115,000 bail and the court records didn’t mention a lawyer for him. If convicted, Wyman could face a maximum of 12 years in prison. So far, two other similar cases have been reported. In Seattle, a man was charged with vehicular homicide, and a woman was charged with a felony in Bloomington.