The woman who police say rammed barriers that stood between her car and several spectators at the Rose Parade suffered from mental health issues and had previous run-ins with law enforcement, a Pasadena city spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The 21-year-old Pasadena resident was driving north on Chester Avenue toward the roughly halfway point of the parade route on Colorado Boulevard around 10 a.m. Monday when she approached the barriers, spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said. A security guard told her not to go forward, but instead of stopping, the driver gave him a vulgar gesture, Derderian said.
The driver almost hit the security guard, then accelerated quickly and struck the 700-pound barriers with her 2005 Toyota Camry. Her tires spinning, smoking and screeching, the driver continued to rev her engine and hit the barriers again, Derderian said.
Finally, two off-duty police officers detained her.
The driver was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. She was not hospitalized on a mental health hold, Derderian said.
“She didn’t really give a motive but in the past, she has had mental health issues,” Derderian said.
When police checked the woman’s name against a crime database they realized they had arrested her before. Derderian declined to describe the crimes.
This was the first such incident in memory in the annual parade’s 135-year history, Derderian said.
The barriers were installed six years ago after a similar scare at a different parade, she said.
“They’ve worked so well that we’ve used them year after year,” Derderian said.
The barriers, called the Archer 1200, performed as designed Monday, according to Peter Whitford, CEO of the Pasadena company that supplied them, Meridian Rapid Defense Group.
The steel barriers are placed four feet apart and are cabled together. When a car hits one barrier, the others are dragged by the cables and stop the car.
“You basically have six barriers tied into the system,” said Robert Penfold, a Meridian spokesman. “Why parade organizers love these barriers is because it acts a complete barrier to the car, but the crowd can walk through.”
The parade attendees avoided a grim fate that, through accident or intent, has maimed and killed others over the years.
Just this Monday, two people died when a man plowed an SUV containing gas canistesr into a crowd leaving a New Year’s concert in Rochester, New York.
On Nov. 6 in Santa Clarita, the driver and passenger of an SUV were arrested after crashing into a crowd outside a restaurant. Six people were injured.
In 2020 in Yorba Linda, a woman drove through a crowd of Black Lives Matter counter-protesters as she was surrounded in a parking lot. Two people suffered major injuries.
In 2017, a white supremacist attack on a crowd protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia killed one person and injured 35.
In 2016, 86 people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, were killed when a truck drove into a crowd. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.
In 2003 in Los Angeles, a driver sped through the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, killing nine people.
