Driver in Florida pride parade crash was 77-year-old participant
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[June 21, 2021]
(Reuters) -The driver of a pickup
truck that hit two pedestrians at the start of a gay pride parade in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was a 77-year-old participant in the event,
police said on Sunday.
The driver, who has not been identified by local authorities, is
cooperating fully with investigators, showed no signs of impairment and
has not been charged, Fort Lauderdale police said in a written
statement.
The victims, both adult males and members of the Fort Lauderdale Gay
Men’s Chorus, were rushed to Broward Health Medical Center, where one of
the victims was pronounced dead. The second victim was listed in a
serious condition.
The driver is also a member of the Gay Men's Chorus.
"The driver of the vehicle, a 77 year-old male, was a participant who
had ailments preventing him from walking the duration of the parade and
was selected to drive as the lead vehicle," police said.
The incident remains under investigation.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, who was criticized after initially
telling a local television station that the incident was premeditated
and a "terrorist attack on the LGBT community," appeared to walk back
those statements on Twitter.
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Local authorities said on Sunday that the crash that killed one
person involving a pickup truck that ran into a crowd of spectators
at a Pride parade in south Florida on Saturday appeared to be an
accident. This report produced by Gavino Garay.
"I was eyewitness to the horrifying events ... I
feared it could be intentional based on what I saw from mere feet
away,” Trantalis said on Twitter.
"As the facts continue to be pieced together, a picture is emerging
of an accident in which a truck careened out of control," he said.
Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was in the
parade, tweeted that she was safe, though she was "deeply shaken and
devastated that a life was lost and others seriously injured."
(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru and Dan Whitcomb in Los
Angeles; Editing by William Mallard and Michael Perry)
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