“I wanted to kill them, you were supposed to kill me”: Drug-crazed driver who plowed into pedestrians, killing one and injuring 22 - tells cops he planned a murder-suicide spree
This is the harrowing moment a driver believed to be high on synthetic marijuana plowed into pedestrians in New York City’s Times Square before telling Police as he was arrested: “I wanted to kill them all.”
The driver, identified as 26-yearold Richard Rojas of the Bronx, was dramatically taken into custody on Thursday after killing an 18-yearold girl and seriously injuring 22 others when he drove through crowds at the popular tourist destination.
A crazed Rojas tried to flee police immediately after crashing his maroon Honda sedan in to a pole and was pictured running across the road with his arms flailing.
Police said Rojas got into a fistfight with an officer as they struggled to arrest him, before he was eventually bundled into a squad car.
Rojas allegedly told Police after he was arrested that he wanted to murder the innocent pedestrians and then wanted cops to kill him as well, sources told the Armed Forces. He never served overseas.
After the crash on Thursday, the NYPD closed off the ordinarily bustling Times Square at the corner of 45th Street and Broadway on Thursday.
Among those hit by the driver was 18-year-old Alyssa Elsman who died at the scene.
The teenager was a tourist from Michigan who was vacationing with her family. She was walking around Times Square with her 13-year-old sister who was also struck.
Alyssa’s body lay lying on the ground on Thursday as first responders arrived at the scene. Other injured victims were lay sprawled across the sidewalk as first responders and other pedestrians tended to them.
Of the 22 people hurt, Police said that four people had been critically injured with open fractures and multiple traumas and three others were seriously injured - all were hospitalised. Some 15 more were not seriously injured, and were not hospitalised. Authorities said Rojas drove up Seventh Avenue in the wrong direction and made a U-turn onto the west sidewalk.
He then plowed down pedestrians for three blocks before crashing into a pole and attempting to flee. Some witnesses said the driver kept speeding even when the body of a victim was clinging to his windshield.
The car came to rest with two of its wheels in the air. It was pictured leaning on a lamppost and steel barriers intended to block vehicles from getting onto the sidewalk.