7 killed outside migrant shelter in Brownsville

7 killed in Brownsville, Texas, car crash outside migrant shelter - The Washington Post

At least seven people were killed and at least five were injured Sunday in Brownsville, Tex., when an SUV struck a crowd waiting for the bus outside a migrant shelter, according the director of the center.

The victims were standing outside the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, a migrant and homeless shelter in the border town.

Video obtained by The Washington Post showed that the driver ran a red light about 100 feet away from where the victims were waiting for the bus. Police would not comment on any motive for the crash.

Witnesses said the driver tried to run away afterward, Victor Maldonado, director of the Ozanam Center, told The Post. But the witnesses stopped him from leaving the scene, he added. Some witnesses said he appeared to be driving under the influence, Maldonado said.

Another video shows the driver sitting shirtless on the street, hands behind his back, as witnesses yell at him and police approach him. Police then made the man stand up and walked him to a police car.

The victims were mostly Venezuelan immigrants heading to the local bus station, Maldonado said.

“I’ve got some folks that are very banged up,” Maldonado said. “They’re crying.”

Multiple videos of the crash, reviewed by The Post, show victims lying on the ground and witnesses crying out for help.

“He ran them over, all of them,” Osvaldo Prieto, who works at a nearby migrant shelter, said in an interview in Spanish.

Prieto said he was heading to offer support at the center on Sunday morning because the head of the kitchen there apparently saw the incident and was so shocked by it that she left the center.

The migrant shelter is located near the Brownsville airport, in an area where migrants are known to gather to eat meals from the shelter before being taken to bus terminals.

Prieto said he wasn’t aware of any threats made to the center ahead of the attack.

“It’s not a secret that this is a place where migrants are being welcomed,” he said.