Venice crash: A noisy moment of silence at tourist hot spot

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Deputies escort Nathan Louis Campbell at the Airport Courthouse, where he was arraigned Aug. 6, 2013, on charges of driving into crowds on the Venice boardwalk, killing a honeymooning Italian woman and injuring 16 others. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

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Piero Casadei, left, and Katia Gruppioni, the father-in-law and aunt of Alice Gruppioni, visit a memorial at the boardwalk on Aug. 5, 2013. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

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People gather at the Venice boardwalk to remember the victims of the Aug. 3, 2013 crash. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

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A card bears the photo of Christian Casadei and Alice Gruppioni, who were on their honeymoon when Gruppioni was killed and Casadei injured. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

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Visitors leave flowers and pay their respects at a memorial on the Venice boardwalk. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

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Lisa Green, left, and Toneey Acevedo, right, stop to place remembrances at a makeshift memorial on the Venice Boardwalk near Dudley Avenue. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Remembrances and flowers at a makeshift memorial. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Life resumes on the Venice Boardwalk after a deadly crash. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Witnesses described a blue Dodge zigzagging along Ocean Front Walk, striking pedestrians and vendors before speeding away. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Bystanders, police and firefighters at the scene of the Aug. 3, 2013, incident in which a crowd of pedestrians was struck in Venice Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

By Robin Abcarian

Aug. 6, 2013 2:23 PM PT

On Monday evening, the summer crowds were thick on the Venice boardwalk.

Up at Dudley Avenue, near the northern end of the bustling oceanfront strip, a crowd gathered for a vigil to honor the victims of Saturday’s car rampage that injured 16 people and took the life of Italian newlywed Alice Gruppioni.

The vigil would begin with 30 seconds of silence, then the crowd would move a block south to the spot where Gruppioni was hit. There, people would lay chrysanthemums donated by a grocery store chain on a makeshift memorial.

Apart from the news vans jammed onto Dudley, though, it was a day like any other in one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations.

Visitors on Segways zipped unsteadily past slow-moving sightseers. Skateboarders and bicyclists weaved in and out of the crowds. Overhead, a few people whizzed by on the new zip line near the skateboard and graffitti pits.

It could have been the spectacular weather or the proliferation of TV cameras, but the boardwalk hummed with all its usual commercial intensity and slightly dangerous vibe. All the regulars were out: The guy with a leashed cat on his head and a sign on his backpack: “My cat surfs. Can yours?” The man with a pink and green plastic dollhouse stuck on top of his fake leopard hat. The bodybuilders who look like inverted human triangles in skimpy bikinis. The medical marijuana peddlers in their fake green scrubs.

A masked drummer played along to some truly awful amplified electronic music.

Harry Perry, in his white turban and skates, inflicted his electrified guitar on anyone within earshot.

A lost-looking couple in a rental car had somehow blundered across the boardwalk from Market Street and had ended up on the west side of the boardwalk, where cars are not allowed. They turned around and slowly drove back across the boardwalk onto Market, parting but not alarming the crowds.

“The cops will tell you that as many as 15 or 20 times a day someone will accidentally come down one of these streets,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, standing on a grassy strip between the boardwalk and the bike path. “The typical person who accidentally crosses the boardwalk is a tourist who is unfamiliar with the area, who may be following GPS which says take a left on Oceanfront Walk.”

In the aftermath of Saturday’s traumatic event, he’s been tossing around ideas for better boardwalk security: More pole barriers? Giant concrete planters? Better lighting and signage? A public address system?

“It’s probably impossible to make it completely terrorist- or assailant-proof,” Bonin said. “It’s open-air, it’s a park, it’s abutting a residential neighbrhood with virtually unlimited points of ingress and egress, but there’s certainly a lot more that can be done to improve things.”

Still, as Bonin noted, the suspect, who has been identified as 38-year-old Nathan Louis Campbell, drove his car up on the sidewalk and around four yellow barrier poles to get onto Oceanfront Walk: “It’s very hard to stop a determined sicko, frankly, that wants to cause harm and mayhem.”

At 6 p.m. as the vigil got underway a couple of local businessmen announced a Kickstarter-type fundraising effort for Saturday’s victims. Bonin asked the crowd to pray for the victims, and asked for silence.

As people bowed their heads. TV reporter Kate Larsen began her live shot for KNBC-TV, killing the moment in classic broadcaster fashion.

When she was finished, her cameraman said, “When does the 30 seconds of silence begin?”

Moments later, as people laid flowers on the memorial for Gruppioni, Emily Tsakoumakis, who coordinates film shoots on the boardwalk for the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, broke up a loud fight between “Chief,” an agitated homeless guy who wore a badge on his shirt, and “Bandit,” a skateboarder with a scarf over his face. “Get offa my beach,” screamed Chief, alarming the mourners a few feet away.

Tsakoumakis said she often mediates between film crews and the homeless Venetians who have an overdeveloped sense of ownership about Oceanfront Walk.

Saturday’s tragedy, she said, “will shine attention on what Venice Beach is really like. The tourists have an idea that it’s like Disneyland. But there are a lot of desperate people here. I hope it will make people kinder.”

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