Several people have been injured after a car drove into a street protest in midtown Manhattan on Friday, the New York City Police Department said.
Witnesses of the incident said the protest march was passing through the intersection of 39th Street and Third Avenue at around 4 p.m. when the car went through.
The New York Fire Department said six people were had been admitted to local hospitals. Police and fire officials said the injuries didn’t appear to be serious.
Officials said the driver, a woman, was stopped near the location. She was taken into custody and was being questioned. It unclear if she would face charges.
In one video revealing the car’s movements, a small group of protesters could be seen gathered around the car on 39th Street as it slowly approached the intersection with Third Avenue, with one person seemingly leaning over the front of the automobile.
The car then accelerated, knocking aside both the people who were attempting to block it and people who were in the intersection.
In another video from the opposite side, people can be observed fleeing and one person is bowled over as the car barrels through.
A participant of the protest, Sofia Vickerman, of Denver, Colorado, said that when the car hit the public it tossed people and a bicycle in the air.
“I hear people screaming in the front, I look behind me, the woman is plowing through,” she said. “I see bodies flying.”
She added that the protest started in Times Square and was aimed at drawing attention to a continued hunger strike by immigration detainees at a jail in New Jersey.
