Haamid Zaid is facing several charges, including hit-and-run and being under the influence of drugs.
Surveillance video from the Capitol Premier Car Wash shows what happened just over three months before the Walmart crash. A man police identified as Haamid Zaid drove a silver Lexus right through double glass doors, smashing into merchandise shelves and almost crushing two employees.
"It seems to me he's on some sort of mission to inflict harm on individuals and prepared to kill people, I suppose," car wash owner Chuck Brassfield said.
Brassfield says he was surprised when he learned that Zaid is accused of doing the same thing on Easter Sunday at a Walmart.
"I had assumed that this fellow was still in jail after this incident. It's apparent that he wasn't, and I'm not so sure that he'll be in jail much longer either," Brassfield said.
So, why was Zaid released on a $20,000 bail? It was a "pretty standard case," said Jim Sibley, the Supervising Deputy District Attorney. "He did, I believe, Jan. 22 fail to appear in court. An attorney appeared on his behalf, and over our objection the court gave him an additional date and did issue a warrant for his arrest. But he was at that point just pending misdemeanor cases. There was nothing looking at that case that would have foreshadowed what we see here today."
The District Attorney's office concluded Zaid lost control of the car at the car wash after hitting another vehicle a few miles away, but Brassfield doesn't buy that. "He was on a mission of some sort. This was not an accidentally running into the door of a building," he said.
Zaid is being held at the Santa Clara County jail and is scheduled to appear in court Thursday on charges he faces involving the incident that happened at Walmart.