A bloodstain remained on the sidewalk where a car crashed into a crowd in front of the Vermont Club in East Hollywood, injuring 30.

The driver who police say intentionally plowed into a crowd early Saturday outside a popular East Hollywood music venue was previously convicted of a hate crime in Orange County, a conviction subsequently overturned by an appeals court, according to prosecutors and court records.

Fernando Ramirez was 23 when, on June 15, 2019, he entered a Whole Foods Market in Laguna Beach and sucker-punched a 26-year-old Black employee who’d been on a lunch break, breaking the man’s nose and severely damaging his two front teeth, according to reports at the time of the incident.

When asked by an officer why he did it, Ramirez said in a conversation recorded on video that it was, in part, because the worker was Black, and that “he hated all Black people,” court records show.

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It is part of a lengthy criminal record that Ramirez accumulated in the years leading up to Saturday night’s attack. Prosecutors in Orange County have filed 11 criminal cases over the past 11 years against him, including several violent charges.

Ramirez had been thrown out of the Vermont Hollywood club before returning to the area in a vehicle around 2 a.m. Saturday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. His vehicle hit street vendors and dozens of late-night clubgoers, according to police, causing several medical emergencies and stoking fear and anger among the crowd.

At least 36 victims sustained injuries ranging from minor pain to serious fractures and lacerations. Several individuals were struck by the vehicle, and some were briefly trapped beneath it. At least 23 people were hospitalized.

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Bystanders pulled Ramirez from his vehicle and attacked him — video showed him being punched and kicked — and, at some point, he was shot, LAPD officials said.

LAPD Capt. Ben Fernandes said that, as nightclub security attempted to detain Ramirez after he left behind a chaotic and bloody scene, another man came from across the street and shot the driver in the buttocks.

Officer Norma Eisenman, an LAPD spokesperson, said on Sunday that the person who shot Ramirez remained at large. Police released a description of the suspect. He was described as male, Latino, about 5-foot-7 and 150 to 170 pounds. He was last seen wearing a blue Dodgers jacket, a light blue jersey with the number “5” and blue jeans. He had gauges — a type of body jewelry — in both ears and a goatee. Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.

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Police released a photo of the man accused of shooting Fernando Ramirez after Ramirez allegedly ran down dozens of people outside an East Hollywood club. (Los Angeles Police Department)

Ramirez had recovered from surgery for his injuries and was in stable condition, Fernandes said. Police said Sunday he was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon with force likely to produce great bodily injury.

Given the size of the crowd, Fernandes said the incident could have easily spiraled into a mass casualty event.

“Quite honestly, I believe it is a miracle,” Fernandes told NBC-4 News.

One witness told ABC-7 News that he saw dozens of people on the ground after the crash. Another said it was “like a movie.”

“You see shoes flying, you see change, money, there’s hot dog stands that were outside the bar … they got hit,” the witness said.

Eduardo Lopez, who was working at his taco truck down the street from the nightclub early Saturday, said he heard the crash and the subsequent screams.

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He told NBC-4 he saw people running and “a lot of people hurt.”

Just hours after more than 120 firefighters and paramedics responded to the horrific scene, the popular music venue remained eerily quiet.

Event organizers on Saturday canceled what was expected to be a sold-out show.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic incident that occurred early Saturday morning outside our venue,” the Vermont Hollywood club posted in a statement online and outside its doors. “We are working closely with law enforcement to ensure the person responsible for this horrific act is held fully accountable.”

Before the Saturday morning attack, Ramirez had already spent months behind bars.

On Jan. 10, 2020, he was sentenced to four years in prison after a jury found him guilty of battery with serious injury, violation of civil rights and a hate crime enhancement for attacking a Black Whole Foods employee.

However, an appeals court in January 2021 overturned part of the verdict after the court found a recorded conversation with an officer violated Ramirez’s Miranda rights. The appeals court reversed the civil rights violation and the hate crime enhancement and vacated the sentence, but upheld the aggravated battery conviction because it was “not affected by the Miranda error.”

In 2020, Ramirez was convicted of a 2019 battery upon a police officer and resisting arrest and got 180 days in jail.

In 2021, he was convicted of assault with great bodily injury and two counts of resisting arrest and received a sentence of 194 days in jail and a year of probation. That same year, he pleaded guilty to corporal injury upon a spouse and was sentenced to three years of probation with 234 days in jail.

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Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney’s office, said Ramirez has a pending driving under the influence charge, and a separate domestic battery charge, including a violation of a protective order stemming from a 2022 incident, also pending in the Orange County courts.

Times staff writer Jaclyn Cosgrove contributed to this report.