A speeding car has ploughed into pedestrians on a footpath in New York City’s busy Times Square, killing one person and injuring 22, authorities say.
Key points:
- Crash happened during busy midday period
- 26-year-old male from New York in custody
- Hundreds of thousands of people pass through the Times Square area daily
There was no indication it was an act of terrorism, officials said.
Witnesses said the motorist was driving against traffic before his burgundy Honda sedan mounted the footpath and struck pedestrians.
The car hit a pole and came to rest at 45th Street and Broadway before police arrested the driver.
One woman was covered with a bloodstained blanket following the collision, which occurred close to midday (local time) at the Midtown Manhattan tourist venue, a witness said.
Shoes were scattered at the scene — city officials said the dead woman was 18 years old.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the driver had two previous arrests for drink driving.
Police identified the motorist as Navy veteran Richard Rojas, 26, of New York — he was taken into custody and was undergoing tests for alcohol and drugs, police commissioner James O’Neill said.
Police said Rojas made a quick U-turn onto 42nd Street and then drove up the footpath for three blocks, passing tourist draws like the Hard Rock Cafe and the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant and mowing people down before slamming into a pole.
He fought with officers who handcuffed him, authorities said.
The vehicle was checked by the bomb squad and some city landmarks were getting a beefed up police presence “out of an abundance of caution”, Mr de Blasio said.
Hundreds of thousands of people, many of them tourists from around the world, pass daily through the bustling commercial area, the heart of the Broadway theatre district.
Police heavily patrol the area. Many footpaths are lined with barricades and planters for fear of vehicle attacks on pedestrians of a sort seen in recent months in Britain, France, Germany and Sweden.
“People were being hit and rolling off the car,” said Josh Duboff, an employee at the adjacent Thomson Reuters headquarters who jumped out of the way to avoid being struck.
US Navy records show Rojas enlisted in September 2011 and was based in Illinois and Florida, working as an electrician’s mate fireman apprentice.
He was arrested a year later at a naval base in Jacksonville, Florida, where officials said he attacked a cab driver, shouted “my life is over”, and threatened to kill police, according to court records.
Rojas was charged with misdemeanour battery and resisting an officer without violence, but it was unclear how the case was resolved.
US Navy records show he spent two months in a military prison in Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 2013, but did not say why. He left the Navy in May 2014.
‘He didn’t stop. He just kept going’
Television footage showed police officers restraining a man in a dark T-shirt and placing him in a police car.
“One male in custody in the #TimesSquare vehicle collision,” the NYPD said on Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment