Shocking incident in the USA: An SUV drove into a crowd. At least five people die. The police rule out a terrorist background.
It was supposed to be a happy afternoon with a pre-Christmas mood and ended in a nightmare. In the United States, a car driver raced into a street parade in an off-road vehicle on Sunday, killing at least five people. At least 48 people were injured when the car drove into the crowd in the US small town of Waukesha, Wisconsin, the police said on Monday. According to the authorities, numerous children were also harmed. According to the police, the fatalities were between the ages of 52 and 81. The background to the fact is still unclear. The investigators rule out an act of terrorism.
For the Waukesha Christmas Parade, people in the center of town lined both sides of the street on Sunday afternoon. The event in the suburb of the city of Milwaukee attracts dance groups, high school bands, politicians and numerous spectators every year. Last year it was canceled due to the pandemic.
Car hits people “at full speed”
Many families with children also attended the parade on Sunday and were amazed at Christmas figures, dancers and musicians when suddenly a red SUV broke through barriers and chased the main street with the parade at high speed.
Eyewitness Angela O’Boyle, who watched the parade from the balcony of her apartment on the fifth floor, told CNN, “The next thing I heard was screams, and when I turned around I saw the car come and in plowed by the band that was just passing my balcony at the time. ” Then she heard parents calling their children’s names.
“There were pompoms and shoes everywhere and hot chocolate spilled,” Corey Montiho told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “My wife and daughter were almost hit.” Angelito Tenorio, who at times also took part in the parade, told the newspaper that the car had sped “at full speed” on the parade route. “And then we heard loud bangs and deafening screams from people being hit by the vehicle,” said Tenorio. “And then we saw people running away or stopping crying, and there were people on the ground who looked like they’d been hit by the vehicle.”
No evidence of terror
Shortly after the incident, the police seized the alleged crime vehicle and arrested a suspect. It was a 39-year-old man, said Waukesha police chief Dan Thompson on Monday. The suspect had recently been involved in a domestic dispute. There is no evidence that the act had a terrorist background. Thompson did not provide any more specific information. He also emphasized that the investigators were convinced that the suspect acted alone.
Several children were seriously injured in the incident. A children’s hospital in Milwaukee announced on Monday that a total of 18 children aged 3 to 16 had been admitted there. The injuries ranged from abrasions and broken bones to severe head injuries. Thompson said two children are currently in critical condition.
Members of dance group dead
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee said that among the injured were students from the Catholic school in Waukesha and a priest. A senior dance group from Milwaukee, the “Milwaukee Dancing Grannies” wrote on their Facebook page that several of their members had died in this “terrible tragedy”.
On numerous video clips, initially not verifiable, that spread on social media, chaotic and disturbing scenes could be seen: An off-road vehicle was filmed from various perspectives in various snapshots, which first raced past participants in the parade, at another point various people in the The road rams and runs over and finally breaks through road barriers and chases away. The video recordings show people screaming and running. In one scene the car barely races past a child dancing in the street.
The governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, expressed his dismay in a tweet and spoke of a “pointless act”. US President Joe Biden said in the White House that five families in Waukesha mourned their loved ones after the “tragedy”. “An entire community is trying to cope with a terrible act of violence,” said Biden. He and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, and presumably the whole country, prayed for victims, injured and loved ones.