NEW ORLEANS — Police say an individual who drove a pickup truck at excessive velocity right into a crowd of individuals celebrating the brand new 12 months in New Orleans early Wednesday was hell-bent on creating carnage. Whereas a motive for the assault that killed a minimum of 10 individuals has but to be revealed, the FBI is investigating it as a terrorist act.
A number of such assaults have taken place over the previous twenty years, some impressed by extremist politics and others blamed on psychological sickness or misogyny.
What authorities name “vehicle as a weapon attacks” have reshaped cities world wide, with planners erecting concrete limitations round public areas and constructing anti-vehicle obstacles in new developments.
Listed here are the small print of some main car assaults:
NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 1, 2025 — Not less than 10 persons are killed and dozens are injured after a driver rams a car right into a crowd of pedestrians in New Orleans’ bustling French Quarter district at 3:15 a.m. on New Yr’s Day. The suspect is killed in a firefight with police, and the FBI says a minimum of one improvised explosive machine has been discovered on the scene.
MAGDEBURG, Germany, Dec. 20. 2024 — Not less than 5 persons are killed and greater than 200 are injured when a automobile slams right into a Christmas market in japanese Germany. Police arrest a 50-year-old physician from Saudi Arabia who has renounced Islam and helps the far-right AfD celebration.
ZHUHAI, China, Nov. 11, 2024 — A 62-year-old driver rams his automobile into individuals exercising at a sports activities advanced in southern China, killing 35, within the nation’s deadliest assault in years. Authorities say the suspect is upset about his divorce. He pleads responsible to endangering public security by harmful means and is sentenced to dying.
LONDON, Ontario, June 6, 2021 — 4 members of a Muslim household are killed when an attacker hits them with a pickup truck. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls it “a terrorist attack, motivated by hatred.” White nationalist Nathaniel Veltman is sentenced to life in jail.
TORONTO, April 23, 2018 — A 25-year-old Canadian man, Alek Minassian, drives a rental van into largely feminine pedestrians on Yonge St., the primary thoroughfare in Toronto, killing 10 individuals and injuring 16. Minassian tells police he belongs to an internet “incel” neighborhood of sexually annoyed males. He’s sentenced to life in jail.
NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2017 — Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamic extremist from Uzbekistan, drives a pickup truck onto a well-liked New York Metropolis bike path, killing eight individuals. He’s convicted of federal terrorism expenses and sentenced to 10 life sentences plus 260 years in jail.
BARCELONA, Aug. 17, 2017 — A person rams a van into individuals on the Spanish metropolis’s crowded Las Ramblas boulevard, killing 14 and injuring others. The Islamic State group claims duty. A number of members of the identical cell perform the same assault within the close by resort city of Cambrils, killing one particular person.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia, Aug. 12, 2017 — Throughout a “Unite the Right” rally, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. drives his automobile right into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one lady and injuring dozens of individuals. Fields is serving a life sentence for homicide and hate crimes.
LONDON, June 19, 2017 — Darren Osborne, a person radicalized by far-right concepts, drives a van into worshippers outdoors a mosque in Finsbury Park, killing one man and injuring 15 individuals. Osborne is sentenced to life in jail.
LONDON, June 3, 2017 — Three attackers drive a van into pedestrians on London Bridge earlier than stabbing individuals in close by Borough Market. Eight persons are killed and the attackers are shot useless by police.
LONDON, March 22, 2017 — British man Khalid Masood rams an SUV into individuals on Westminster Bridge, killing 4, then fatally stabs a policeman guarding the Homes of Parliament. Masood is shot useless.
MELBOURNE, Australia, Jan. 20, 2017 – Six persons are killed and greater than 30 injured when a automobile hits lunchtime crowds at a pedestrian mall in Australia’s second-largest metropolis. James Gargasoulas is discovered to have been in a state of drug-induced psychosis and is sentenced to life in jail.
BERLIN, Dec. 19, 2016 — Anis Amri, a rejected asylum-seeker from Tunisia, plows a hijacked truck right into a Christmas market within the German capital, killing 13 individuals and injuring dozens. The attacker is killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
NICE, France, July 14, 2016 — Tunisian-born French resident Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drives a rented truck for greater than a mile (nearly 2 kilometers) alongside a packed seaside promenade within the French Riviera resort on the Bastille Day vacation, killing 86 individuals within the deadliest assault of its variety. He’s killed by police, however eight different persons are sentenced to jail for serving to orchestrate the assault.
APELDOORN, Netherlands, April 28, 2009 – Former safety guard Karst Tates drives a automobile into parade spectators in an try to hit an open-topped bus carrying members of the Dutch royal household. Six persons are killed and Tates dies of accidents the subsequent day, leaving his full motive a thriller.
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, March 3, 2006 — College of North Carolina graduate Mohammed Taheri-Azar drives an SUV right into a crowd on the college, evenly injuring 9 individuals, in a self-professed bid to avenge Muslim deaths abroad. He’s sentenced to as much as 33 years in jail.
