The New York police detained the driver of a van that circulated on sidewalks and bike lanes in Brooklyn on Monday, leaving at least eight injured, of whom two were in critical condition, before being stopped, after placing a police car to it will embed itself The alleged perpetrator was detained without further incident after what was described as a “violent attack”.
In a city always ready to scare, the shadow of Sayfullo Saipov was immediately projected, who fatally ran over eight people in the west of Manhattan in October 2017. Last month he was found guilty and the fact that this Monday began The hearing to decide whether to impose the death penalty caused suspicions to skyrocket.
Despite not being clear what happened, the New York police chief, Keechant Sewell, insisted at a press conference that "we have no indication that the incident has any terrorist implications, but we are continuing the investigation with all resources ".
However, Sewell did not specify any cause for what happened because the investigations were in a preliminary phase. “What we have seen today is a reminder that every moment, every day, the police force must be ready for such a possibility,” he added.
Some police sources identified the driver as 62-year-old Weng Sor based on NBC's information. The head of the NYPD refused to advance this information.
And he denied the version that had previously spread that the uniformed officers stopped that truck, in the Bay Ridge neighborhood, which ignored the signal and fled, injuring citizens, several of them on bicycles. One of the eight injured is a policeman.
According to Sewell, the police began the pursuit around eleven hours after learning of the driver's outburst. It circulated more than five kilometers through the neighborhoods of Sunset Park and Red Hook, where the police managed to block it.
The injuries occurred in seven different places, with scenes of people lying on the asphalt, with their bloody faces, as the witnesses explained. Councilman Justin Brannan, who represents the area, declared on local television that everything indicated that the matter had occurred randomly and that the driver acted on purpose.
"The driver knew what he was doing, he knew he was hitting people," added the councilor. He even said that, once arrested, the alleged perpetrator made a confession to the agents. “I want to die”, he would have told them himself. Sewell also declined to confirm this information.
