Car slams into pedestrians in Times Square, killing 18-year-old woman – CBS News
Car slams into pedestrians in Times Square, killing 18-year-old woman
Last Updated May Nineteen, two thousand seventeen 12:06 AM EDT
Fresh YORK — At least one person was killed and twenty two others injured after a car drove through a crowd of pedestrians in Times Square just before noon Thursday.
The driver, 26-year-old Richard Rojas from the Bronx, is in custody and has two prior arrests for driving while intoxicated, officials said. Rojas was charged Thursday night with one count of murder in the second-degree and twenty counts of attempted murder, NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill said in a statement.
Rojas made a U-turn onto a sidewalk in Times Square, William Aubry from the Fresh York Police Department said. The car traveled on the sidewalk for three blocks, striking and killing Alyssa Elsman , an 18-year-old woman from Michigan.
Public school officials and a member of the Elsman family confirmed to CBS News that Elsman was killed in the crash. She graduated from Portage Central High School in Portage, Michigan, in 2016. Her 13-year-old sister was injured in the incident.
Mayor de Blasio: No indication of terrorism in Times Square crash
Speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the crash was not an act of terror.
“Based on the information we have at this moment, there is no indication this was an act of terror,” de Blasio said.
Rojas had been arrested in two thousand eight in Queens and two thousand fifteen in Manhattan for inebriated driving, officials said at the press conference.
Rojas is a U.S. citizen and former member of the armed services. He served in the Navy from July two thousand eleven to March 2014, CBS News correspondent David Martin reports. He spent two months in military prison in Charleston, South Carolina, after being court martialed.
He was transported to a facility to be tested for drugs and alcohol.
“Today’s events at Times Square were nothing brief of horrific,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “As facts proceed to emerge, my heart goes out to the victims of this terrible tragedy, as well as their families.”
President Trump has been briefed on the situation, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.
The car, a crimson Honda, came to a stop after plunging into a row of security barriers. Rojas allegedly emerged from the car and was tackled by bystanders and police officers and taken into custody.
“The driver attempted to run from the scene, and the bouncer from Planet Hollywood hit him, so we leaped on top of him and ripped his T-shirt, dreamed to make sure he had no gun or knife on him,” a ticket agent told CBS Fresh York.
The area was packed with Fresh Yorkers and tourists loving unseasonably warm temperatures at lunch hour. The car came to rest on top of the security barriers that protect pedestrian plazas in Times Square, which is open to limited vehicle traffic.
“The car just came and hit the pole out of nowhere,” a witness told CBS Fresh York. “Everybody was just running. Everybody was worried for their lives.”
“We eyed that the car was up on its side and there was smoke and flames coming out of the top of the roof and it was coming out of the bottom also and the police rushed over here and shoved us all back across the street they said it could be a possible bomb or the car could explode, but they had it under control pretty quickly,” Val Ashton from Atlanta who witnessed the aftermath told CBS Fresh York.