Seven dead after driver ‘intentionally’ crashes into crowd outside Brownsville migrant center in Texas
SEVEN people have been killed on Sunday morning by a driver that crashed into a crowd.
In Brownsville, Texas, located about 277 miles south of San Antonio near the Mexico border, a motorist ran down bystanders on purpose, police say.
The crash occurred around 8.30am just outside of the Ozanam Center, a shelter for the homeless and migrants, per Concho Valley Homepage.
Lt. Martin Sandoval told the news outlet that seven people were confirmed dead at the scene.
Around four to six others hit by the motorist were taken to local hospitals for their injuries.
The driver of the vehicle was arrested and charged with reckless driving, authorities said.
Sandoval noted that the department expects more charges to be filed as they believe the act was, indeed, intentional.
The driver’s name has yet to be released, and they were held at the scene to be tested for intoxication, KRGV-TV reported.
Although, a police spokesperson noted that the driver is a Hispanic male and Brownsville resident.
A nearby driver said that bodies were being covered in the area of Minnesota Road and North Bernal Road, per CVHP.
She told the publication that people nearby could be seen praying and that some victims were being loaded into ambulances.
Victor Maldonado, director of the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, also checked surveillance footage outside of the center to study the crash, per AP News.
Maldonado explained that the motorist ran into the city bus stop, where most of the victims, who were said to be Venezuelan men, were hit.
“What we see in the video is that this SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about 100 feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” he told the publication.
The director continued that the SUV flipped after going up onto the curb and moved for about 200 feet before stopping.
Others near the bus stop walking on the sidewalk were also hit, according to Maldonado.
He believes that the crash could have been targeted given the recent rise in border crossing in Brownsville.
The city declared an emergency a few weeks prior, and Maldonado says hundreds of migrants have arrived per day.
They are allowed to use the city’s public transportation thanks to the Ozanam Shelter, and the shelter provides its own methods as well.
“In the last two months, we’ve been getting 250 to 380 a day,” he said.
“Some of them were on the way to the bus station because they were on their way to their destination.”
Threats were never made before the crash, but after, Maldonado noted that the center received several.
“I’ve had a couple of people come by the gate and tell the security guard that the reason this happened was because of us,” he told AP News.
Police noted that the area would be closed off for several hours and that drivers should find alternate routes if they intended to travel through.