The man who drove a truck through a bicycle lane in lower Manhattan followed the Islamic State’s instructions for carrying out an attack “almost exactly to a T,” New York police said Wednesday morning.
“He did this in the name of ISIS,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller said at a news conference one day after Tuesday’s incident. Eight people were killed and 12 injured in what is the worst terror attack in New York since Sept. 11, 2001.
Miller said the suspect, who was shot and wounded by police, appeared to have planned the attack for “a number of weeks” and left notes indicating his allegiance to the Islamic State.
New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said six people were pronounced dead at the scene where a Home Depot-rented pickup truck mowed into bicyclists. Fourteen people were taken to three local hospitals. Two were later declared dead at the hospital.
Nigro said two of the dead were Americans, five were from Argentina, and one was from Germany.
Three of the injured have been released from the hospital. Of the nine people remaining, four were critically injured but are considered stable.
Nigro said the injuries range from a bilateral amputation to serious head, neck, back, and chest trauma to arms and legs.
Federal and local law enforcement officials have disrupted two dozens plots focused in New York City since 2001.
