Bakkie mows two down at gay parade

ONE DEAD: MAYOR CLAIMS ‘DELIBERATE TERROR ATTACK’

But ‘Chorus’ group president calls crash ‘an unfortunate accident and LGBTQ’s not targeted’.

The driver of a pickup truck slammed into a crowd gathering for a Pride parade on Saturday in south Florida, killing one man and injuring another.

The truck appeared to be taking part in the procession and it was not immediately clear if the crash was a deliberate assault or an accident. Police detective Ali Adamson said officials were evaluating all possibilities.

The incident happened at the start of the Wilton Manors Stonewall

Pride Parade and festival, an lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) celebration in a town near Fort Lauderdale.

The white bakkie was lined up with other floats for the parade when it accelerated and ran into pedestrians before crashing into a plant nursery, Local 10 News said. The driver was taken into custody.

Two adult men were transported to a medical centre where one later died, Adamson told reporters in a press briefing. The other remained hospitalised but was expected to survive, she added.

The driver and the victims are members of the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus, according to a statement from the group’s president Justin Knight, who called the incident an “unfortunate accident”.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected,” he said.

“Our fellow Chorus members were those injured and the driver is also a part of the Chorus family. To my knowledge, this was not an attack on the LGBTQ community.”

Fort Lauderdale mayor Dean Trantalis, who was at the parade, told a local broadcaster he thought the crash was “deliberate”.

In the immediate aftermath, he called it “a terrorist attack against the LGBT community” and claimed the truck had targeted the car of Democratic congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Wasserman Schultz said on Twitter: “I am deeply shaken and devastated that a life was lost. My staff, volunteers and I are thankfully safe.”

While the parade was cancelled “due to a tragic event”, the other festival events continued.

June is Pride Month, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots, sparked by repeated police raids on a popular gay bar in New York. –