Sidewalk Driver Tried to Kill Many, Prosecutor Says at Trial

Daniel Lee Young told police that he was trying to kill as many people as he could last July 27 when he turned his car onto a crowded Westwood sidewalk on the eve of the 1984 Olympics and mowed down nearly 50 pedestrians, a prosecutor said Monday.

In his opening statement at Young’s trial in Santa Monica Superior Court, Deputy Dist. Atty. John H. Reid for the first time made public extensive portions of the statement that Young made to police after his arrest.

“ ‘I saw all the people. That’s why I went out there to kill, so I could be on TV for killing somebody,’ ” Reid quoted Young as saying in the defendant’s tape-recorded statement to authorities.

“ ‘Tonight, I got back, I got back to injustice. . . . I had hate in me. When I hit the first person, I put it to the floor. . . . I was making sure I ran the whole block down. . . . I tried to get the whole block and if I could, I would have got another block,’ ” Reid continued.

Young, 21, of Inglewood is accused of one count of first-degree murder and 48 counts of attempted murder. Pedestrian Eileen Deutsch, 15, of New York City died of her injuries.

If convicted of all counts and special allegations that he used a deadly weapon, an automobile, and inflicted severe injuries, Young could be sentenced to state prison for the rest of his life.

At least two of the injured were for a time in comas, Reid said, and another’s leg had to be amputated below the knee.

Through his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Irwin Pransky, Young has pleaded both not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

Pransky told the jury Monday that Young suffers from delusions and that he drove his brother’s car onto the sidewalk to call attention to his belief that the government had ordered him to write hit songs for which he would be neither paid nor credited.

As further evidence of his client’s mental problems, Pransky told jurors that Young has confessed to shooting 14 children (one of whom died) at the 49th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles last Feb. 24, and to killing 21 people at a McDonald’s fast-food restaurant in San Ysidro last July 18. Suspects in both those shootings died during the incidents.

Because of his delusions, Pransky argued, Young was not able to clearly plan and consider his actions, circumstances required for the jury to find Young guilty of first-degree murder, which carries a penalty of 25 years to life in prison.

The facts will show, Pransky said, that Young is guilty of murder in the second degree, which is punishable by a sentence of 15 years to life.

If the jury determines that Young is guilty of any of the crimes with which he is charged, the jurors must then decide, in a second phase of the trial, if Young was sane when he committed the acts. If he is found not guilty by reason of insanity, he will be committed to a state mental hospital.

In his opening statement, Reid argued that Young clearly carried out the planning and deliberation required for a finding of first-degree murder.

According to Reid, Young told police that he had been planning the sidewalk rampage for weeks and that he had considered plowing down bystanders on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills but decided against that plan because Westwood Boulevard is the more crowded street.