US: Assault suspected after brutal car crash in Rochester

A fatal accident outside a concert hall on New Year’s Eve in upstate New York, US, is the subject of an intense investigation that includes suspicions of terrorism. On the night from Sunday to Monday, around 12:50, in Rochester, a small town located on the shores of Lake Ontario and about 130 km from Niagara Falls, the driver of a Ford Expedition, a large SUV that can carry eight people. , crashed into a Mitsubishi Outlander leaving the parking lot near the Kodak Center in Rochester, where the band Moe was finishing a concert that had attracted a thousand people.

“The force of the collision caused two vehicles to pass through a group of pedestrians in a crosswalk and then hit two other vehicles,” city Police Chief David Smith said during a press briefing Monday. “The accident resulted in a large fire that took the Rochester Fire Department nearly an hour to extinguish.”

Two passengers in the Mitsubishi Outlander were killed and the driver, an Uber driver, was injured. The driver of the Ford Expedition was hospitalized in serious and potentially life-threatening condition. Three pedestrians were injured, one was seriously injured and was taken to hospital. No details about the victims were provided. According to the New York Post, the driver of the Ford died from his injuries around 8 p.m. Monday; his name was Michael Avery.

Two troubling elements led authorities to consider the possibility of a terrorist accident and assign the investigation to local police and FBI agents as part of the “Joint Terrorism Task Force”: A dozen gasoline cans were found in and around the Ford Expedition. after the fire was extinguished. And Michael Avery, originally from Syracuse, went to the city airport, located 140 km from Rochester, to rent that same large SUV. “We continue to work with our federal partners, including the FBI, to determine exactly what led to this crash,” Smith said.

Investigators are interviewing those around Avery, combing his digital assets and social media, and searching a hotel room he booked in Rochester for more information that could explain why he rented the huge car and stockpiled cans of gas.