Manhattan Truck Crash Leaves At Least 8 Dead, One in Custody
Being investigated as an act of terrorism
NEW YORK (CNN) –
The driver of a rental truck drove down a busy bicycle path in Manhattan near the World Trade Center, killing eight people and injuring about a dozen others in what officials said was an “act of terror.”
After crashing the truck into a school bus, the suspect exited the vehicle while displaying imitation firearms and was shot in the abdomen by police, according to the NYPD.
The suspect, a 29-year-old man, is in police custody and was taken to a hospital for treatment, officials said.
The incident is being investigated as terrorism, officials said. Witnesses reported the suspect was yelling “Allahu Akbar,” according to four law enforcement sources. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is taking over the lead of the investigation.
The statements made by the driver moments after leaving the truck and the method of the attack were consistent with other terrorist attacks, New York City Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said. Vehicles have been used as weapons in a number of terror attacks in recent years, including in deadly incidents in Nice, France, and London.
“This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror,” New York Mayor bill De Blasio said, “aimed at innocent civilians, aimed at people going about their lives who had no idea what was about to hit them.”
NYPD officers respond to a report of gunfire along West Street near the pedestrian bridge at Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017. (NYPD)
The suspect, driving in a Home Depot rental truck, hopped a curb at West Houston Street and drove south on the bike path on the west side of West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan for several blocks, officials said.
Just after the incident, news footage showed several mangled bicycles on the popular bike path as medics tended to the wounded in the background.
Six people were declared dead at the scene and two were pronounce dead at the hospital. Eleven others were transported to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro.
No other suspects are being sought, the NYPD said.
A spokesman for Home Depot confirmed one of the company’s rental trucks was part of the incident in lower Manhattan and said the company is “cooperating with authorities” in the investigation.
