Eight people are dead and more than a dozen injured after the driver of a truck drove the wrong way down a well-trafficked bike path, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
“This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror,” he said.
[Previous story, posted at 5:19 p.m. ET]
The driver of a rental truck drove the wrong way down a busy bicycle path in Manhattan near the World Trade Center, killing up to six people and striking numerous others, a New York Police official said.
The driver then exited the vehicle while displaying imitation firearms and was shot by police, according to the NYPD. The suspect is in police custody and was taken to a hospital for treatment, sources at the NYPD said.
The incident is being investigated as terrorism, according to multiple law enforcement sources. 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 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, the official said.
After striking multiple people, the suspect hit a school bus and wrecked his truck, an NYPD official said. Four people were removed from the bus and they had minor injuries, the official said.
No other suspects are being sought, the NYPD said.
Vehicles have been used as weapons in a number of terrorist attacks in recent years, including in deadly incidents in Nice, France, and London, England.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo both said they are heading to the scene. The White House said President Trump was briefed by chief of staff John Kelly on the incident in lower Manhattan and “will be continually updated as more details are known.”
Press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected.”
A spokesman for Home Depot confirmed one of the company’s rental trucks was part of an incident in lower Manhattan and said the company is “cooperating with authorities” in the investigation.
Facebook initiated a safety check-in relating to the incident.
Witness accounts
News footage showed crowds of spectators — some capturing the scene with cellphone cameras — gathered behind police lines. A white Home Depot truck with the front end smashed was also visible.
Parts of several mangled bicycles littered the popular bike path along the West Side Highway and the Hudson River, as medics tended to the wounded in the background.
Michael Corbin, the assistant real estate manager for District Council 37, the city’s largest public employees union, was standing outside the union’s lower Manhattan offices attending to a woman who slipped and fell on the sidewalk.
“The first responder to the event was a counterterrorism officer,” he said. “We were attending to the victim, getting her onto a stretcher and, at that moment, we heard gunshots. I recalled hearing five gunshots in quick succession and immediately the officer … left to investigate the situation from the direction we heard the noise coming from.”
Another witness, Ramon Cruz, described what he saw.
“What I saw was that the driver — he didn’t look like he was bleeding,” said Cruz. “He was dragging his foot. He looks frustrated, panicked, confused. People are running past me, saying, ‘He’s got a gun. He’s got a gun.’ I didn’t see any gun.
“It was a white pickup truck. He looked pretty bad without bleeding or anything like that. I didn’t see him hit anybody. All I heard was the impact of a crash.”
Tuesday afternoon on Twitter, a user posted an image of a person lying on the ground near the scene of an incident near West & Chambers Streets in Manhattan.
