Hochul says two people died in the blast caught on video footage that was so ‘surreal,’ it looked like it had been generated by AI.
The crash and explosion at a U.S.-Canadian border checkpoint at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls was not a terrorist attack, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in an update on Wednesday evening.
“At this time, there is no indication of a terrorist attack,” Ms. Hochul told reporters. “Let me repeat that: At this time, there is no indication of a terrorist-involved attack here at the Rainbow Bridge in Western New York.”
Two people were killed in the incident, including the driver of the vehicle, who is believed to be a resident of New York. The blast prompted the closure of several border crossings for hours.
The governor couldn’t confirm the origin of the vehicle, which was traveling at an extremely high speed before it crashed into a median at 11:27 a.m. on Wednesday and became airborne. The vehicle is suspected to have come from the vicinity of a casino.
“It’s a Western New York resident who was most likely in that vicinity prior to the extraordinarily high rate of speed that led to the crash into the median that sent the vehicle airborne,” the governor said.
FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Matthew Miraglia said the agency didn’t have “any derogatory information” on the driver, leading investigators from the Joint Terrorism Task Force to believe there are “no indications of a threat of terrorism.”
“We’re scanning his social media, there’s nothing there. We’re still running a full investigation so that’s a preliminary assessment,” Mr. Miraglia told reporters. “We feel, at this point, this might be just something that occurred, there’s no larger picture here to look at for now.”
The car crashed into a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol booth, and both “immediately exploded.” A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) worker inside the booth was injured and taken to a hospital, the governor said.
Ms. Hochul added that video footage of the crash, which has since been released by CBP, was “surreal” and hard to believe.
