At least eight people were killed Sunday when a driver ran over pedestrians at a bus stop outside an immigrant shelter in South Texas., In one incident, the police were investigating deliberately, officials said. Brownsville police said 10 others were injured.
Brownsville Police Department spokesman Martin Sandoval told the CBS affiliate K.R.G.V Authorities received a call at 8:30 a.m. local time to report an incident that they later determined was a Land Rover “ran over several people” while waiting at a stop near the Ozanam center, a migrant shelter. People in Brownsville, Texas. Sandoval said witnesses said the driver ran a red light before the bus pulled into the stop and overturned.
When police arrived at the scene they found seven people already dead, Sandoval said. Another person died Sunday night, police told CBS News.
It has been confirmed that at least some of those killed were immigrants, Sandoval said.
When Sandoval spoke to KRGTV on Sunday afternoon, officers stopped the driver of the Land Rover “who was receiving medical treatment,” he said.
The driver is expected to face criminal charges, at least for careless driving. According to Brownsville police, the suspect was uncooperative.
“But it’s more likely that other charges will come later in the day,” Sandoval told the news station. “We also do our due diligence, which means we really try to see if he’s intoxicated or not. So we run all those tests.”
Myrna Arteaga, manager of the Ozoman Center, called the incident “horrific.” He said the shelter receives about 80-120 migrants a day.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Arteaga said.
Several roads were closed following the incident.
An investigation into the fatal incident is ongoing, but eyewitnesses told police that “the car went out of control.”
“Right now, while we know whether it was an accident or intentional, it’s still under investigation,” Sandoval said. The spokesman noted that people who saw it “started to help some of the people there” and detained the driver themselves while they waited for police to arrive at the scene.
Brownsville police shared few details in a recent update on the crash, which Sandoval characterized as “a major accident” in a video message shared to the department. Facebook page.
“We have blocked all the roads, so we are asking people to find alternative routes,” he said. “Like I said, at 8:30am, we got a call about an accident. For now, that’s all the information we have. But if you continue to follow us, we’ll get more information here on this channel.
