Driver Plows Into ICE Protest, Sends 6 to Hospital

Suspect Kathleen Casillo said she panicked
By Luke Roney,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 12, 2020 12:36 PM CST
Driver Charged for Plowing Into Demonstrators in NYC
Stock image.   (Getty Images)

"It was traumatizing." That's how Desmond Marrero describes an incident Friday in which a woman plowed her car through a crowd of demonstrators in Manhattan. "One of the guys who was hit pushed me out of the way," Marrero tells the New York Daily News. "I turned and watched as he went up into the air and flipped over." The driver, 52-year-old Kathleen Casillo has been charged with reckless endangerment in the crash, which sent six people to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, per ABC News. "I saw lacerations, broken bones," Christian Resseguie tells the New York Times. He was among the demonstrators marching in support of hunger-striking ICE detainees.

Video posted to Twitter shows Casillo accelerate her BMW into the crowd at E. 39th Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill. She was taken into custody shortly after the crash. Casillo, who was driving with her 29-year-old daughter, reportedly told police that demonstrators were banging on her car and she panicked and hit the gas. A demonstrator was charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration for allegedly interfering with emergency workers responding to the scene. (More demonstration stories.)

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