SUV driver held for killing 7 outside Brownsville Ozanam Center ‘uncooperative’

Luis Herrera told the news channel that he and his friends, a number of whom were killed, were waiting to go to the airport when they were struck by the vehicle.

“We were going to the airport and it happened unexpectedly because a woman in a car passed by and advised us to separate and moments later the killer was coming in the car gesturing and insulting us,” Mr Herrera said.

Most of the victims struck by the vehicle were Venezuelan men, said shelter director Victor Maldonado. Brownsville has seen a surge of Venezuelan migrants over the last two weeks for unclear reasons, authorities claimed.

On Thursday, 4,000 of about 6,000 migrants in Border Patrol custody in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley were Venezuelan.

Police have so far not attributed the motive to the incident, adding that they are probing if it was intentional or accidental.

The death toll has risen to eight in the incident of an SUV slamming into a crowd of people waiting for a bus on Sunday outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas.

At least 10 others were injured, police said, as they prepared to arrest the hospitalised driver.

The suspect who allegedly rammed his car into a crowd at a Texas border town was taken to the hospital for injuries sustained when the car rolled over, said police, adding that he was “being very uncooperative at the hospital”.

“But he will be transported to our city jail as soon as he gets released,” said the police. “Then we’ll fingerprint him and (take a) mug shot, and then we can find his true identity.

”Police retrieved a blood sample and sent it to a Texas Department of Public Safety lab to test for intoxicants.

Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval said there are three possible explanations for the collision: “It could be intoxication; it could be an accident; or it could be intentional. In order for us to find out exactly what happened, we have to eliminate the other two.”

An SUV slammed into a crowd of people waiting for a bus Sunday outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, killing at least seven people and injuring at least 10, police said as they prepared to arrest the hospitalized driver.

With no bench at the unmarked city bus stop, some of the victims were sitting on the curb around 8.30am when the driver hit them, surveillance video from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center showed. Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval said police did not know whether the collision was intentional.

Shelter director Victor Maldonado said the SUV ran up the curb, flipped and continued moving for about 200ft. Some people walking on the sidewalk about 30ft from the main group were also hit, Mr Maldonado said. Witnesses detained the driver as he tried to run away and held him until police arrived, he said.

“This SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about 100ft away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” said Mr Maldonado, who reviewed the shelter’s surveillance video.

Victims struck by the vehicle were waiting for the bus to return to downtown Brownsville after having spent the night at the overnight shelter, said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

Accident involving Range Rover took place outside city’s Ozanam Center say police.