Thursday 13 March 2014

Southwest festival On the Hit List

Breaking: Two dead, many injured, after car plows into crowd at South by Southwest festivalTwo people have died after a car drove through temporary barricades set up for the South By Southwest festival in Austin and struck a crowd of pedestrians.



More than 20 others were injured, five critically, in the incident that occurred about 12:30 a.m. central time.
Austin Police Lt. Brian Moon told the Washington Post the two victims were confirmed dead at the scene in downtown Austin, along a block where several clubs are located. He said 21 others were transported to various hospitals with injuries ranging from minor to critical.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo told KVUE-TV that officers were attempting to pull over the driver at a gas station on the Interstate 35 service road when the driver fled the wrong way down 9th Street, a one-way street, and turned onto Red River into a crowd of pedestrians. The driver then fled on foot.
The driver was eventually tased and taken into custody, Acevedo  said.
Yvette Ruiz, 27, of Austin, told the Washington Post she was attending the festival when she and her boyfriend saw the car break through a barricade at 9th and Red River streets and continue north, plowing through “clusters” of festival-goers.
“I could hear the rev of the engine and people screaming,” she said. “I turned around to see people falling off the hood of the car. Then there was a police car immediately on its tail so we assumed the person was evading arrest.”
Moon said he could neither confirm or deny that the driver was evading arrest. He said the department’s DWI Enforcement Unit as well as Vehicular Homicide Unit is investigating.
Ruiz said she left the scene shortly after the incident to give paramedics and police space.“There was a lot of blood everywhere. People on the street. People on the sidewalk,” she said. “It was barricaded. It was supposed to be safe.”

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