Updated Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017, 6:25 p.m. EDT: The death toll in a deadly incident in lower Manhattan has reached eight, and police have identified the suspect in the attack as 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov of Tampa, Fla.
ABC News reports that Saipov is said to have screamed “Allahu akbar” after the crash, and it is for that reason that police are treating the incident as a possible act of terrorism.
The suspect was reportedly brandishing what appeared to be two handguns when he exited his vehicle. A uniformed officer shot the suspect in the abdomen, police said.
A pellet gun and a paintball gun were recovered at the scene.
Of the eight victims, six were pronounced dead at the scene, and two more died at a nearby hospital. Eleven more people have serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has called the incident a “cowardly act of terror.”
Earlier:
At least seven people are dead and as many as 11 others are injured after a man driving a pickup truck plowed down a bike path and ran his vehicle into people along the path in New York City’s lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon.
The New York Times reports that the man drove a Home Depot pickup truck down a bike path that runs alongside the Hudson River, hitting multiple people before jumping out of the vehicle while holding two fake guns. He was shot by police and was being treated at a local hospital.
The man drove down as many as 20 city blocks near Stuyvesant High School and crashed into a school bus, according to the report. It is unclear whether the bus was carrying passengers at the time.
Police are not actively looking for additional suspects at this time, but ABC News reports that the incident is being investigated as an act of terrorism.
Several buildings in the immediate area were placed on lockdown as a result.
This story is developing, and more details will be added as they come.
Read more at the New York Times and ABC News.