On October 31, 2017, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov drove a rented pickup truck into cyclists and runners for about of the Hudson River Park's bike path alongside West Street from Houston Street south to Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The vehicle-ramming attack killed eight people, six of whom were foreign tourists, and injured eleven others.
After crashing the truck into a school bus, Saipov exited, apparently wielding two guns (later found to be a paintball gun and a pellet gun). He was shot in the abdomen by a policeman and arrested. A flag and a document indicating allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were found in the truck.
A federal grand jury indicted 29-year-old Saipov, who had immigrated to the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010, with eight murders in the aid of racketeering, twelve attempted murders in the aid of racketeering, destruction of a motor vehicle and providing material support for a terrorist organization. This was the second terrorist attack allegedly committed by a winner of the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery following the 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting. After the attack, anti-vehicle bollards were installed on the Hudson River Park bike path.
Attack
At 2:06 p.m. EDT On October 31, 2017, a man rented a pickup truck at a Home Depot in Passaic, New Jersey. At 2:43 p.m., he crossed the George Washington Bridge and entered Manhattan, proceeding south down the West Side Highway. At 3:04 p.m. at Houston Street near Pier 40, he swerved into the Hudson River Greenway, a protected bike lane of Hudson River Park that runs parallel to West Street. The man ran over people in the bike lane, mainly cyclists, killing eight and injuring seven others along a stretch.
The driver's truck crashed into a school bus that was transporting students with special needs. Four people on the bus were injured. The truck stopped near the corner of Chambers Street and West Street, close to Stuyvesant High School. The driver exited the truck and ran, zigzagging, while brandishing weapons that were later found to be a paintball gun and a pellet gun. Police said he shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he stepped out of the vehicle. He was shot in the abdomen by New York City Police Department officer Ryan Nash, taken into custody, and transported to Bellevue Hospital for medical care.
It was the fifteenth vehicular attack in North America and Europe by jihadist terrorists since 2014, according to New America, a nonpartisan research institution. To date, these attacks had killed a total of 142 people. The incident was considered the deadliest terrorist attack in New York City since the September 11 attacks of 2001.
Victims
Eight people were killed in the attack, which injured another twelve, including the suspect and two children. Two of the dead were Americans: Darren Drake, a 32-year-old man from New Milford, New Jersey, and Nicholas Cleves, a 23-year-old man from Manhattan. The other six were foreign nationals; five tourists were from Argentina, and the sixth was from Belgium. The five Argentine victims (Diego Enrique Angelini, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Ferruchi, Hernan Diego Mendoza and Alejandro Damian Pagrucco) were all aged 47 or 48. They had been part of a group of ten former classmates at San Martín Polytechnic, a high school in the city of Rosario, Argentina, celebrating their 30th graduation anniversary to fulfill a promise made to each other when they graduated. The Belgian victim was Ann-Laure Decadt, a 31-year-old mother of two from Staden on vacation in New York City.
A sixth member of the Argentine group was hospitalized at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital. Two other Belgians were in critical condition. One surviving victim required the amputation of two limbs.
Perpetrator
The perpetrator, 29-year-old Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then a part of the Soviet Union, on February 8, 1988, and lived most of his life in the districts of Beltepa and Uchtepa. Saipov was the eldest of four children and his parents' only son. In 2005, he graduated from a professional college and studied at the Tashkent Financial Institute from 2005 to 2009, before working as an accountant.