The truck sped by means of the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn earlier than police stopped it close to the doorway to a tunnel main from Brooklyn to Manhattan.
NEW YORK — A person driving a U-Haul truck swerved onto sidewalks and plowed into cyclists and scooter riders in New York City on Monday, killing one particular person and injuring eight others earlier than police had been in a position to pin the careening automobile towards a constructing following a mileslong pursuit by means of Brooklyn.
The driver was arrested and brought to a police station. His son recognized him as Weng Sor, 62, a troubled man with a historical past of dangerous habits and stints behind bars.
The mayhem unfolded over a harrowing 48 minutes because the truck tore by means of Brooklyn’s bustling Bay Ridge neighborhood, hitting people at a number of factors alongside the best way earlier than veering on and off a freeway as police gave chase.
Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell described it as a “violent rampage,” but said there was no evidence of “terrorism involvement.”
The 9 people struck by the automobile ranged in age from 30 to 66. All had been males. One of the injured people was a police officer.
The 44-year-old man who was killed suffered a head damage when he was hit by the truck roughly a half hour after it struck the primary sufferer, the police division stated in a press release.
The truck’s winding route ended when a police cruiser lower it off and blocked it towards a constructing close to the doorway to a tunnel main from Brooklyn to Manhattan, greater than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the place the chase started.
Weng Sor’s son, Stephen Sor, 30, instructed The Associated Press that his father had a historical past of psychological sickness and, till not too long ago, was dwelling in Las Vegas, the place data present he was convicted and served time for a number of acts of violence, together with stabbing his personal brother.
“Very frequently he’ll choose to skip out on his medications and do something like this,” Stephen Sor said in an interview outside his Brooklyn home. “This isn’t the first time he’s been arrested. It’s not the first time he’s gone to jail.”
The destruction shattered the late-morning routine and instantly evoked recollections of different automobile assaults on bikers and pedestrians in the crowded metropolis, together with a terrorist’s lethal 2017 assault that killed eight people on a Manhattan bike path and a disturbed motorist’s rampage through Times Square the identical 12 months that killed one and injured 20.
The truck struck the primary sufferer at 10:17 a.m., police stated, and different studies adopted because the automobile moved by means of a busy part of Brooklyn, simply north of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge alongside New York Harbor.
The neighborhood, a melting pot of immigrants from Europe, Asia and the Middle East, is named the setting of “Saturday Night Fever,” and elements of TV’s “Blue Bloods.” Each fall, it hosts a leg of the New York City Marathon.
Katherine Aronova stated she noticed the U-Haul run a purple mild, hit a supply employee on an e-bike in the center of the street and drag him a brief distance.
“His face was covered with blood. He was unconscious,” and his sneakers had been scattered on the sidewalk, Aronova stated. “The electric bicycle was destroyed completely.”
A safety digital camera captured the truck clipping a scooter, then swerving onto a sidewalk and practically plowing right into a pedestrian, who dived to security simply in time. A police patrol automobile then adopted the truck down the sidewalk at excessive pace.
“I was in shock and didn’t know what was happening until I saw the police patrol was chasing it,” a witness, Andrea Vasquez, stated in Spanish. “Thank God that man saved himself,” she added of the one who narrowly escaped.
After the chase ended, authorities examined the automobile to verify it did not comprise explosives.
Sor rented the truck in West Palm Beach, Florida on Feb. 1 and was resulting from return it there on March 3, U-Haul spokesperson Jeff Lockridge stated. He supplied a legitimate driver’s license and paid for a 30-day rental in advance. U-Haul had no report of Sor beforehand renting from the corporate, Lockridge stated.
Stephen Sor stated he was stunned when Weng Sor confirmed up in Brooklyn in the midnight a couple of week in the past. He stated they did not converse typically and described their relationship as “rocky.”
“I attempt to simply distance, so long as he leaves us alone,” Stephen Sor stated.
In 2015, Weng Sor stabbed his brother in Las Vegas and served about 17 months in a Nevada jail, in accordance with courtroom and jail data. In 2020, he stabbed somebody in the arm and chest with a knife and was sentenced to 364 days in county jail, with about 10 months of time already served.
Before pleading responsible in that case, Sor underwent a number of months of evaluations at state psychiatric services till he was discovered competent to face expenses, courtroom data present. The data don’t listing a attainable prognosis, however notice that Sor was positioned on medicines.
In an earlier Nevada case, Sor was ordered to endure counseling and carry out group service after pleading responsible to misdemeanor battery in 2005. The choose famous on the time that Sor was shifting to New York and ordered him to undergo a psychological well being analysis as soon as there.
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