The driver who plowed an SUV into a crowd of migrants outside a bus stop was allegedly shouting anti-immigrant obscenities before the crash happened, according to witnesses of the crash.
A Venezuelan migrant who escaped the crash said the driver, who killed eight people and injured 10, was shouting that immigrants were invading the US, along with other offensive remarks, Monitor News reported. The Guardian reported a similar witness statement.
The majority of those injured and killed were Venezuelan men.
The crash occurred Sunday morning outside an overnight shelter in Brownsville, Texas, which is near the state’s border with Mexico. The city’s only overnight shelter hosts unhoused people and migrants and has been at capacity for two months.
Several people died at the scene, said authorities, with the eighth victim dying on Sunday night.
According to surveillance video of the crash, the driver of the SUV ran a light and plowed into the waiting crowd at the bus stop.
“What we see in the video is that this SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about a hundred feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” the shelter’s director, Victor Maldonado, told the media.
As of Monday morning, the driver’s identity has not been released by authorities. Officials obtained a blood sample of the driver to check for possible intoxicants, but the results of said test have also not been released.
The driver was arrested for reckless driving, but could face additional charges if the crash was found intentional, said authorities.
The driver was reportedly being uncooperative and provided different names to authorities, police said. Investigators were working to verify the driver’s name as Sunday ended.
The truck killings came four days before Title 42 was set to expire. Title 42 was a Covid-era policy that allowed for the expulsion of migrants.
Days before the crash, US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that immigration authorities faced “extremely challenging” circumstances along the border with Mexico days as Title 42 is set to end.
