'No contest' plea in deadly bar fight

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A Grand Rapids woman who allegedly drove her car into a group of people, killing a 19-year old woman, pleaded no-contest in a Kent County courtroom Wednesday.

One count of second-degree murder and a count of assault with attempt to murder four people are charged against April Juarez, 23.

The plea agreement in Judge Jim Redford's court lowered the charges against her from an open murder charge. Both charges now carry a maximum life sentence.

The charges stem from a March 5 bar room brawl at the Tap House bar in downtown Grand Rapids. It ended with the death of Tifanee Crews, 19, who witnesses said was an innocent bystander.

The incident started with words between Juarez and a woman she didn't know. The fight moved outside of the bar and down the road, where Juarez eventually would drive her Cadillac into a crowd of people on the sidewalk, killing Crews.

Victims who were struck by the car described the events during a preliminary hearing March 17.

Catrina Mahamud, who was struck three separate times by the car, testified she had been on a couch in the VIP room around 2 a.m. when she overheard the suspect arguing with a man. She said she asked Juarez if she was OK, and Juarez responded with anger.

"The next thing I know, she's charging at me, she swings and hits me," Mahamud said.

Juarez's attorney, Gerald Stahl, suggested Mahamud started the fight by poking Juarez and asking if she was "straight," but Mahamud denied that.

The argument led to a bar fight involving perhaps a half-dozen women, with kicking, hair-pulling, punching and combatants crashing through a glass table before bouncers kicked them out, witnesses said.

Witnesses testified they watched an angry Juarez jump into a car and drive into people on Ionia Avenue before heading down a sidewalk on nearby Weston Street, where she struck Crews.

Mahamud said she was the first victim struck by the car -- hit first on her left side, knocking her down.

"She reverses again and she strikes me again," she said. "I thought she was done hitting us."

Instead, she watched as the car sped up along the sidewalk, striking her and her fiancé and several other people, including Crews, who had stopped to watch the brawl while walking to a friend's house.

"I seen somebody under the car," Mahamud said.

Mahamud, who suffered bruises and a gash on her leg, said she and others tried to pull Juarez out of the car, but the driver escaped.

"(The) defendant was not acting in defense of herself or any one else and was at no legal reasoning for her actions," Redford said.

Juarez's attorney argued the death was "at most, a manslaughter case," and "accidental."

"As I see it, she's just trying to turn the corner and get out of there," when she struck the victim, Stahl argued.

Crews' father, Teion Crews, said he has forgiven Juarez, but still wants to see justice served. He was pleased with the plea deal and Juarez's decision to accept it.

She will be sentenced at 2 p.m. June 14.