A woman with a toddler in her car repeatedly plowed into pedestrians on the crowded Las Vegas strip, killing one person and injuring dozens more in what police say may have been an intentional assault.
Las Vegas Deputy Police Chief Brett Zimmerman said the incident was “not an act of terrorism” but appeared to be intentional. He said homicide units were investigating.
Flashing ambulance lights overtook the glitz of the famous Strip after the deadly incident, which took place near the hotel where the Miss Universe pageant was ending.
Police said the driver, a woman in her 20s, swerved onto the sidewalk two or three times on the Strip at around 6:40 p.m. (9:40 p.m. ET) local time along a stretch of the Strip near the Paris Las Vegas and Planet Hollywood hotels.
The 1996 Oldsmobile with Oregon plates drove off from the scene and was found parked at another hotel, according to police. The driver was detained and will face charges, police told an early-morning press conference, adding that the 3-year-old who was in her car was unharmed.
Police did not identify the driver, but said it appeared she recently had moved to the area.
“This is a huge tragedy that has occurred on our Strip,” police Lt. Peter Boffelli said.
At least six of the injured were transported to hospitals in critical condition, but all were stable early Monday morning, Las Vegas police said. Authorities initially said 37 people were injured, but they later said 26 people had been transported to three hospitals.
The driver hit pedestrians in two areas, according to police, which said witnesses described the car speeding up and slamming into a second group of people after the initial strike.
Rabia Qureshi, a tourist from Wisconsin, told NBC station KSNV that the car looked like “a bowling ball and the human bodies were like pins.”
“You think it’s a show, because you’re in Vegas,” Qureshi said. “But then I saw some people fly in the air.” Qureshi’s husband, Atif, a surgeon, stopped their car and dashed out to lend assistance. “The first thing that came into my mind was that I should be out there helping them,” Atif Qureshi said. Another witness, Sofie Kitterød, told NBC News that she saw 10 people being taken away in ambulances. “What we’ve heard is that a car drove up on the sidewalk by Planet Hollywood and continued past Paris Hotel,” Kitterød said. “There are many ambulances on both sites.” This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com
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