A day after a group of people was run over outside an immigrant shelter in Brownsville, Texas, United States, killing at least eight people, the driver was charged with manslaughter, according to local police.
According to police headquarters quoted by the Associated Press, 34-year-old George Alvarez was charged with eight counts of manslaughter and 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The incident occurred on Saturday when he lost control of the vehicle after running a red light and hitting a group of people waiting at a bus stop in front of the Centro Obispo Enrique San Pedro Ozanam, converted into an immigrant shelter. .
The centre’s director, Victor Maldonado, said the Range Rover passed a traffic light about 30 meters away before the collision, eventually overturned and was dragged about 60 meters, hitting people walking on the pavement about 30 feet from the center. away. main group.
Witnesses to the accident detained the driver when he tried to escape and held him until police arrived, the center’s director said, adding that most of the victims were Venezuelan men.
The victims hit by the vehicle were waiting for the bus to return to downtown Brownsville to spend the night at the overnight shelter, the center’s executive director, Norma Pimentel, explained.
Brownsville has seen an increase in Venezuelan migrants. On Thursday, 4,000 of the approximately 6,000 migrants in Border Patrol custody in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley were Venezuelans.
Source: DN
