One person is dead and almost two dozen others are injured after a car drove through a crowd of people in New York City’s Times Square today, according to the FDNY. Witnesses say the maroon Honda Accord drove the wrong way through traffic before mounting a curb and striking pedestrians, finally coming to rest atop a set of metal crash barriers.
Horrific photos from the scene show the smoking, badly-damaged Accord lying nearly on its side against the steel bollards, with groups of people clustered around the victims lying on the sidewalk. Police say the number of injured could rise as more people are processed at area hospitals.
According to reports, the alleged driver is 26-year-old man named Richard Rojas, a Bronx resident and U.S. citizen with a history of DWI. He reportedly tried to flee in the chaotic aftermath, but a group of witnesses were able to hold him down until police arrived; video from the scene shows him being led into a patrol car by several officers. Police told the New York Times that he appeared to be intoxicated at the time, and they do not believe the incident was terror-related.
“People were being hit and rolling off the car,” witness Josh Duboff told Reuters, adding that he jumped out of the way to avoid being struck.
“He was driving very fast,” street vendor Karma Namgyal told Fox News. “He was going the wrong way up the street and drove onto the sidewalk. He started hitting people. They were flying in the air. He plowed through them. The people he hit were face down. Everyone else started screaming. It was all fast.”
The incident put one of the world’s busiest intersections on lockdown. Times Square receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every day, and social media instantly lit up with messages and warnings about the crash.
We’ll update this post with additional information as the story develops.