BROWNSVILLE, Texas >> An SUV slammed into a crowd of people waiting for a bus Sunday outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, killing at least seven people and injuring at least 10, police said as they prepared to arrest the hospitalized driver.
With no bench at the unmarked city bus stop, some of the victims were sitting on the curb about 8:30 a.m. when the driver hit them, surveillance video from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center showed. Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval said police did not know whether the collision was intentional.
Shelter director Victor Maldonado said the SUV ran up the curb, flipped and continued moving for about 200 feet. Some people walking on the sidewalk about 30 feet from the main group were also hit, Maldonado said. Witnesses detained the driver as he tried to run away and held him until police arrived, he said.
“This SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about 100 feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” said Maldonado, who reviewed the shelter’s surveillance video.
Victims struck by the vehicle were waiting for the bus to return to downtown Brownsville after having spent the night at the overnight shelter, said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.
Most of the victims were Venezuelan men, Maldonado said.
The driver was taken to the hospital for injuries sustained when the car rolled over, Sandoval said.