One Dead, at Least 22 injured as Car Mows Down Pedestrians in New York’s Times Square
Screams were heard as pandemonium broke out in NewYork’s busy Times Square on Thursday when a speeding red sedan ploughed into pedestrians on a pavement, according Reuters. The attack reminiscent of a similar incident outside UK’s Parliament on March 22, has so far left one person dead and at least 22 injured.
The police has not been able to establish that the incident, which occurred around noon ET (16:00GMT), was linked to terrorism, an opinion that shared by news media and witnesses. This was despite other eyewitness accounts that seemed to suggest that the action of the driver, who was driving against traffic, was “intentional”.
The bustling Manhattan-based commercial hub at the heart of the Broadway theatre district attracts hundreds of thousands of people, mostly tourists from around the world, daily.
In a description of the scene of the incident, Reuters reported that one person was covered with a bloodstained blanket after the car, identified as a red Honda sedan, ran into the pedestrians while CBS New York Television said the driver had been removed. Also, television footage showed a man sporting a dark T-shirt being restrained by the police and placed in a police car.
The car crashed into a pole and finally came to a halt at 45th Street and Broadway before the police whisked the driver away. Photos showed the car partially resting on its sides on the pavement and emitting smoke and flames from the bonnet.
Reuters further described the scene after the attack as littered with shoes and quoted an employee at the adjacent Thomas Reuters headquarters, identified as Josh Duboff, who jumped out of the way to avoid being hit, as saying:“People were being hit and rolling off the car.”
Another witness, Abdel Dosokey, 20, who told the UK newspaper The Guardian that he was working in a falafel cart at Broadway and 43rd St, on the east side of Times Square, when the incident occurred, said:“I saw a car go onto the sidewalk and hit a lot of people” and that the police and ambulance arrived at the scene about two minutes later.
BBC also quoted an eyewitness Ed G Val, who was across the street and saw the car speeding north on the west sidewalk of the 7th Avenue, as saying in an Instagram post: “A woman in front on the sidewalk was hit and tossed before then car reached 44th street [and] continued ploughing people down at full speed up to 45th street where it was stopped after crashing into more people and the light posted pictured.”
More photos showed people being carried away on stretchers, while other casualties were strewn across the walkway.
The driver, further identified as US Navy veteran and US citizen, has meanwhile been been taken into police custody and the scene of the incident cordoned off by the New York Police Department.