One person has been killed and eight injured after they were struck by a driver in a rental van in New York.
The victims ranged in age from 30 to 66, with all eight injured in a stable condition, police said.
New York Police Department said the suspect was evading a police stop before he hit bystanders and fled.
The incident in Brooklyn happened around 11:00 local time (16:00 GMT). A male suspect was arrested in nearby Sunset Park.
He has been identified a Weng Sor, 62. He had been living in New York for around a decade, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
Over the course of 48 minutes, the suspect struck nine people at several different locations in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
A 44-year-old man was killed after being hit by the truck around 10:48 ET (15:48 GMT) and sustaining head injuries, police said in a statement on Tuesday.
During a news conference police called the incident a “violent rampage”. They do not believe it is terrorism-related.
Surveillance footage showed the U-Haul van swerving on to a pavement and speeding as it was chased by a police car, prompting at least one pedestrian to leap out of the way.
Police tried to stop the van by boxing it in, but the suspect rammed two police cars and escaped, CBS reported.
Officers said the truck hit pedestrians and three moped drivers.
One of those struck was a police officer, authorities said.
Josephine Lubarno, who works nearby, told the BBC that she was leaving a Chase bank branch when she noticed the U-Haul speeding down the street.
The van, she said, hit several cars in its way and struck a man who was putting on his helmet and getting ready to mount his bike.
“The man was flung on to the sidewalk,” Ms Lubarno said, adding that bystanders began to scream and call for help. The man appeared to be badly injured, she said.
Malaysia-born Sor had previously served time in prison near Las Vegas for stabbing his brother and his roommate in two separate incidents.
In September 2021 a judge in Nevada ruled him not competent to stand trial.
Weng Sor’s son, 30-year-old Stephen Sor, told the Associated Press his father had a history of mental illness.
“Very frequently he’ll choose to skip out on his medications and do something like this,” Stephen Sor said. “This isn’t the first time he’s been arrested. It’s not the first time he’s gone to jail.”
Police said the suspect had no arrest record in New York, but officers did speak to him in 2019 after police were called about a man jumping in and out of traffic.
The officers who arrested him on Monday said he told them that he “wanted to die”, but gave no indication of a motive, CBS reports.
U-Haul said the vehicle was rented on 1 February in Palm Beach, Florida, and was due back there on 3 March.
Pillows, clothes and boxes seen near the crashed van suggest that he may have been living in the rental.
Source : BBC
