NYC Halloween Parade to proceed despite terror attack
New York City’s annual Halloween parade will proceed as scheduled on Tuesday night, hours after at least eight people were killed and several others were injured when a driver steered a pickup truck into a crowd in lower Manhattan.
“The Halloween Parade will go on, with [New York Police Department] dramatically increasing presence (personnel, blocker trucks, long guns etc,” New York City mayor’s office press secretary Eric Phillips wrote on Twitter.
The Halloweeen Parade will go on, with NYPD dramatically increasing presence (personnel, blocker trucks, long guns etc).
— Eric Phillips (@EricFPhillips) October 31, 2017
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is personally inspecting security along the parade route, Phillips added. The 44th annual “Village Halloween Parade” runs along Sixth Avenue in Manhattan from Spring Street to 16th Street and begins at 7 p.m. ET.
An as-yet unidentified motorist driving a rental pickup truck deliberately struck cyclists and pedestrians on a popular path near New York’s World Trade Center complex. De Blasio told reporters that the incident is being investigated as a terrorist attack.
“This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians,” de Blasio said at a news conference.