Police in New York said Monday a man drove a small U-Haul rental truck onto a sidewalk in Brooklyn, striking multiple people before he was taken into custody.

A police official told The Associated Press that at least eight pedestrians were injured, and two are in critical condition.

Police pursued the truck on a chase through the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, stopping it 5 kilometers away before the vehicle entered a tunnel to Manhattan. Video from news helicopters over the scene showed the truck pinned next to a building, its path blocked by a police cruiser.

New York City councilmember Justin Brannan tweeted, “We have no idea of motives at this time, but this wasn’t an accident.”

He told WABC-TV in New York that “police approached this driver and tried to get him to pull over, and at that time, he said something to the effect of, ‘I want to die,’ and then proceeded to start driving on the sidewalks in Bay Ridge.”

The station reported that police called in a bomb squad to search for explosives in the vehicle but found nothing suspicious.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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