An investigator walks past a crashed pickup truck following an incident in New York on October 31, 2017. AFP
NEW YORK CITY — A driver plowed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path along the Hudson River in Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 11 before being shot by a police officer in what officials are calling the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001.
The rampage ended when the motorist — whom the police identified as Sayfullo Saipov, 29 — smashed into a school bus, jumped out of his truck, and ran up and down the highway waving a pellet gun and paintball gun and shouting “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”
Saipov was then shot in the abdomen by the police officer. He remained in critical condition on Tuesday evening.
Mayor Bill de Blasio declared the rampage a terrorist attack, as federal law enforcement authorities led the investigation.
Investigators discovered handwritten notes in Arabic near the truck that indicated allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group.
‘Cowardly act’
“Based on information we have at this moment, this was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians,” De Blasio said at a news conference.
Five of the people killed were Argentine tourists who traveled to New York for a 30-year high school reunion celebration. A sixth member of the group was wounded.
Belgian officials also said one of those killed and three of those injured were from Belgium.
Saipov, who came to the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010, had a green card that allowed permanent legal residence.
An official said Saipov rented a truck in New Jersey. The truck came crashing to a stop near the corner of Chambers and West Streets by Stuyvesant High School.
Sirus Minovi, 14, a freshman who was hanging out with friends, said people scattered. “We heard people screaming, ‘gun’ ‘shooter’ and ‘run away.’ We thought it was a Halloween prank,” he said.
Minovi realized it was not a joke when he saw the man staggering through the intersection, waving guns and screaming words he could not make out.
A passer-by approached the attacker, apparently trying to calm him, until the man realized the attacker had a gun. The man “put his hands up and was backing away,” Minovi said.
Saipov had been on the radar of federal authorities but only as a result of an unrelated investigation.
It is unclear, however, whether he is connected to a 2015 terrorism investigation in Brooklyn, which resulted in charges against five men Uzbeks and a Kazakh who allegedly provided material support to the IS group. Several of the men have pleaded guilty.
Kilometer-long crime scene
FBI agents were expected to search Saipov’s home in Paterson, New Jersey, and his car on Tuesday night. A phone, which was recovered at the scene of the attack, also will be searched.
The attack, which unfolded as nearby schools were letting out on a Halloween afternoon, ended five blocks north of the World Trade Center.
Saipov left more than a kilometer-long crime scene: a tree-lined bike path strewn with bodies, mangled bicycles and bicycle parts, from wheels twisted like pretzels to a dislodged seat.
He wove a deadly path on a stretch usually bustling with commuters, runners and cyclists, drawn by the downtown offices nearby or the shimmering river.
Saipov turned onto the bike path alongside the West Side Highway at Houston Street just after 3 p.m. and sped south, striking numerous pedestrians and cyclists, many of them in the back. People scattered and dived to the asphalt.
A seventh-grader had been walking on her usual route home when other students turned and ran in the other direction. “All the kids were screaming, ‘Run!,’ ‘Gun!’ ‘Run inside,’” she said, still wearing cat ears. She said mothers pushing strollers and children in costumes ran in a herd back toward the school.
Saipov, a slim, bearded man, was seen in videos running through traffic after the attack with a paintball gun in one hand and a pellet gun in the other.
Six people died at the scene and two others died at a hospital, officials said. The authorities credited the officer who shot him with saving lives.