COSTA MESA, Calif. -- A man who drove his car into a crowded playground of children, killing two preschoolers and injuring five other people, told police he accelerated on purpose.
"I was going to execute these children because they were innocent," Steven Allen Abrams told police, according to Lt. Ron Smith.Witnesses told police that Abrams sped up Monday as he reached the Southcoast Early Childhood Learning Center schoolyard at 35 to 40 mph, crashing through a fence and terrifying more than 40 children.
"Why he picked yesterday, why he picked this school, why he picked these kids, we don't know," Smith said Tuesday.
Four-year-old Sierra Soto and 3-year-old Brandon Wiener died under his 1967 Cadillac. Nicholas McHardy, 2, and Victoria Sherman, 5, were in critical condition.
Teacher's aide Danielle Knecht was treated for a broken leg at University of California, Irvine Medical Center and released, said nurse Chong Lee. Two other injured toddlers were treated and released.
Abrams didn't know the children or anyone at the school, Smith said.
"In his mind, he associated the school with the neighborhood he used to live in," Smith said. Five years ago, Abrams was arrested for stalking his girlfriend. They had lived near the preschool in the upper-middle-class neighborhood outside Los Angeles.
Abrams worked at a concert ticket agency that was owned by his brother-in-law.
Forty-five minutes before the killings, Abrams rammed a car that cut him off on the nearby Costa Mesa Freeway, Smith said.
After plowing into the playground, Abrams calmly sat behind the wheel until police arrested him. Angry neighbors, parents and workers from a nearby church jeered as he was led away.