At least seven pedestrians were killed and several others injured on Sunday when an SUV mowed down people near a homeless shelter that attends to migrants in Brownsville, Texas, police said.
The male driver was in custody, Lieutenant Martin Sandoval of the Brownsville Police Department said, adding he was charged with reckless driving and could face additional charges.
Sandoval said the victims in the morning crash were waiting at a bus stop near Ozanam Center, a shelter for the homeless used by migrants. He said some migrants were among the dead.
"We are doing an investigation in forms of intoxication to see if he was intoxicated at the time of the accident," said Sandoval on Fox News.
It was not clear if the driver had crashed into the group intentionally or lost control of the vehicle, Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. of Cameron County was quoted as telling the New York Times.
There no immediate details on how many people were injured or their condition.
The city of Brownsville, on the border with Mexico, is one of the places expecting an influx of migrants when COVID-era restrictions under Title 42 expire on Thursday.
A video circulating online purporting to show the crash shows a speeding SUV plowing into a row of people sitting on the curb. A second video of the aftermath appears to show victims lying on the ground, some bloodied and writhing, while others lay motionless.
We were not able to independently verify the authenticity of the videos.
The driver, identified as a Hispanic man, is being "uncooperative" with authorities, according to Sandoval. He has given authorities multiple names, and police have had to fingerprint him in hopes of finding his identity -- which takes more time, Sandoval said.
Authorities have a blood sample from the driver and a toxicology test will be ordered, Sandoval said. It's unclear how long it will take for authorities to get those results, he said.
Brownsville police are investigating with the help of Border Patrol, he added.
Sandoval said authorities are still investigating whether the crash was intentional or accidental. He said witnesses described seeing the driver ignore a red light, drive up on a curb and run over a group of people waiting at the bus stop.
The shelter has been housing immigrants while they wait for more permanent housing, he said.
Brownsville is located on the southern tip of Texas, just across the Rio Grande River. The city's population is nearly 95% Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2022 census.
Brownsville declared a state of emergency after receiving an influx of thousands of migrants, many from Venezuela, in the past several weeks, CNN media previously reported.
The crash happened just days before a Trump-era immigration restriction dubbed Title 42 is set to expire. The pandemic-era policy allowed immigration agents to swiftly return migrants to their home countries. Officials have predicted a rise in immigration in coming weeks when the restrictions are lifted Thursday.
Shelter director says surveillance footage captured horrific crash Victor Maldonado, the director of the Ozanam Center, told CNN that about 20 to 25 migrants were sitting on the curb waiting for a bus across the street from the shelter. He said surveillance video captured the deadly wreck with footage showing a vehicle driving very quickly, crashing about 30 feet from where the migrants were sitting and then losing control.
Police took Maldonado's copy of the surveillance video, he said.
The migrants were from Venezuela and had arrived at the shelter about two or three days ago, Maldonado said.
Maldonado said after the crash, he and a staff member at the shelter ran outside to find a very graphic scene, with body parts spread across the area.
"I've got a staff [member] who is in shock," Maldonado said, adding that he, too, was in shock
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