Up to six people were killed near Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon in a wild incident that involved a truck ramming into victims on the West Side bike path, police sources said.
The mayhem happened at West Street and Chambers Street at 3:15 p.m. The suspect was shot and is in police custody, cops said.
Witnesses described a scene of terror, saying a man in a truck ran over two people before plowing into a school bus.
“Jesus! A car just ran over 2 people and then crashed into a school bus. I see two dead bodies and citibikes on the floor destroyed,” a Twitter user wrote.
The suspect then got out of his vehicle with two guns, another witness said.
“What happened was there was a car crash … he came out of one of the cars. He had two guns,” a 14-year-old Stuyvesant High School student said. “We thought it was a Halloween thing. He started running around the highway. There was another guy in a green shirt that was chasing him around.”
“I heard four to six gunshots — everybody starts running,” she added.
Video of the scene shows at least two people lying limp on the street. Photos show a smashed-up Home Depot rental truck and two mangled Citi Bikes.
Counter-terror police were searching the truck for explosives.
“Oh my god I just heard gun shots and ran with my dog. Downtown. F–k,” Josh Groban tweeted.
Police shut down the FDR Drive south of 34th Street to rush victims to Bellevue Hospital.
http://nypost.com/2017/10/31/several-people-shot-in-downtown-manhattan/
Wow.. This doesn’t make any sense to me, but I guess it’s been a long time since I was in NYC.
Apparently Stuyvesant High School was moved (was on the east side) but isn’t St. Vincents hospital still a lot closer to this mess than Bellvue, or did they move that, too?
Maybe Angel can clear this up.
St. Vincent’s was closed on April 30, 2010 (politicians, protests, and petitions did no good). Demolition began in 2012 and was completed 2013. Now, it has been replaced by luxury condos and we are still fighting to get a hospital.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/St-Vincents-Closes-for-Good-92492524.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/realestate/first-condos-sold-at-former-st-vincents-hospital.html?_r=0
Stuyvesant High School is now located at 345 Chambers Street (on the West Side/Hudson River).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School
Thanks, Angel. I shouldn’t pretend to know anything about that city anymore, and if I ever did go back I probably wouldn’t recognize the place. (things change there so quickly)
BUT… what about Beekman Downtown Hospital? It still seems ludicrous to me that the cops cleared the west side highway up to 34th street for a clear path to Bellvue, because that would still leave them with 2 miles of cross-town traffic to fight, when St. Lukes is one more mile north. (unless that’s gone too — I’ll dig up the info myself)
Seems to me like Bellvue would be the last choice from that location, but obviously, I could be very wrong.