Woman to trial for pedestrian death

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A downtown bar room brawl that ended outside with the death of an innocent bystander began on a couch in the VIP room at the Tap House bar, witnesses testified Wednesday.

It started with words between the suspected killer, April Juarez, and a woman she didn't know. Minutes later, Juarez, 22, allegedly drove a Cadillac into a crowd of people on a sidewalk, killing 19-year-old Tifanee Crews.

Victims who were struck by the car described the events during a preliminary hearing Wednesday for Juarez in Grand Rapids District Court.

After the hearing, Grand Rapids District Judge Benjamin Logan ordered Juarez to stand trial on charges of open murder and four counts of assault with intent to murder.

Catrina Mahamud, who was struck three separate times by the car, testified she had been on a couch in the VIP room about 2 a.m. March 5 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.

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.