Driver Hits Crowd at Bus Stop, Killing 8

UPDATE May 8, 2023 6:14 AM CDT

The death toll has risen to eight after an SUV slammed into a crowd of people waiting for a bus Sunday outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, the AP reports. At least 10 others were injured, police said, as they prepared to arrest the hospitalized driver. “He’s being very uncooperative at the hospital, but he will be transported to our city jail as soon as he gets released," a police investigator says. "Then we’ll fingerprint him and (take a) mug shot, and then we can find his true identity.” He adds that there are three possible explanations and it's not yet clear which one is accurate: "It could be intoxication; it could be an accident; or it could be intentional."

May 7, 2023 5:15 PM CDT

Seven people were killed and as many as six injured Sunday when they were struck by a vehicle while waiting at a city bus stop outside a migrant shelter in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, police said. Shelter director Victor Maldonado of the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center said he reviewed the shelter's surveillance video. "What we see in the video is that 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," he said. The city bus stop is across the street from the shelter and is not marked. There was no bench, and people waiting were sitting along the curb, Maldonado said. He said most of the victims were Venezuelan men, the AP reports.

He said the SUV flipped after running up on the curb and continued moving for about 200 feet. Some people walking on the sidewalk about 30 feet away also were hit, Maldonado said. The Ozanam shelter is the only overnight shelter in Brownsville and manages the release of thousands of migrants from federal custody. Brownsville has long been an epicenter for migration across the US-Mexico border, and it has become a key location for next week's ending of the pandemic-era border restrictions known as Title 42. Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval said authorities are investigating whether the 8:30am crash was intentional or an accident. They are also testing the driver, who was held at the scene by witnesses, for intoxication.

story continues below

Maldonado said the center had not received any threats before the crash but did afterward. "I've had a couple of people come by the gate and tell the security guard that the reason this happened was because of us," Maldonado said. The shelter can hold 250, though many who arrive leave the same day. A recent uptick in border crossings prompted the city to declare an emergency as local, state, and federal resources coordinated the enforcement and humanitarian response. "In the last two months, we’ve been getting 250 to 380 a day," Maldonado said.

(More Brownsville-Harlingen stories.)