A 20-year-old Washington state man who plowed a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians at a Carlsbad strip mall earlier this year was sentenced Thursday to five years in state prison.
John Martinez-Gutierrez, of Spokane, pleaded guilty to an attempted murder count last month for striking multiple people with his vehicle just after 2 a.m. May 15 at the Village Faire shopping center on Carlsbad Village Drive.
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Carlsbad police said Martinez-Gutierrez got into a fight with multiple people in the shopping center's parking lot, then drove his vehicle into a crowd of people, striking several of them. After driving a short distance, he then reversed the vehicle into a group of people, striking several more, then fled.
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The attack left four people hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries, according to police.
Martinez-Gutierrez was arrested two days later at a motel in Escondido.
