NEW YORK _ A terrorist drove down a crowded bicycle and pedestrian pathway in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least eight people and injuring nearly a dozen, officials said.
The rampage came to an end when the suspect, described as a 29-year-old man, crashed his rented Home Depot truck and ran into the street waving a pellet gun and a paintball gun before being shot by police and taken into custody.
Witnesses in the area said the suspect shouted, "Allahu akbar," which is Arabic for "God is Great."
New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill said at an afternoon news conference that the attack was terrorism.
"This is a tragedy of the greatest magnitude," he said.
O'Neill said the killings occurred near the World Trade Center Memorial around 3:05 p.m. He offered few details about the suspect or his medical condition.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter to address the attack, writing: "In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!"
Tom Gay, a school photographer, said he was nearby on Warren Street and heard people saying there was an accident, The Associated Press reported.
Gay said he stuck his head around a corner and saw a slender person in a blue track suit running southbound on West Street holding a gun. He said there was a heavyset man pursuing him.
Gay said he heard what sounded like five or six gunshots and the person in the track suit fell to the ground, gun still raised in the air. He said a man came over and kicked the gun out of the person's hand.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration this year issued a report titled "Vehicle Ramming Attacks: Threat Landscape, Indicators and Countermeasures," which notes that in the last three years, at least 173 people have been killed and more than 700 wounded in 17 ramming attacks around the world.
In June, a careening van plowed into pedestrians on London Bridge before attackers leaped from the vehicle and began stabbing patrons in a nearby nightlife area.
Three months earlier, a man drove his car into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge, killing four and injuring dozens more, before jumping out and fatally stabbing a police officer and being shot dead by other officers.
In December 2016, a man with ties to Islamic State drove a 27-ton truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56 others. And in July 2016, as thousands crammed into the streets of Nice, France, for a Bastille Day celebration, another assailant influenced by Islamic State drove a 19-ton cargo truck into a crowd, leaving 86 dead and 434 injured.
