× Police: 28 hurt after car plows into parade crowd in New Orleans; suspect in custody

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans police say the number of people injured after a vehicle crashed into a crowd watching the Krewe of Endymion parade in the Mid-City section of New Orleans has increased to 28 and a suspect is in custody. Seven others who were hurt declined transport, Police Chief Michael Harrison told a news conference. The utility vehicle, travelling along the side of the street open to traffic along the Mid-City Krewe of Endymion parade route, struck three other vehicles, including a garbage truck, before veering onto the median strip where a crowd of people stood watching the procession, according to New Orleans police. The crash was reported Saturday at about 6:45 p.m.

New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Ambria Washington said that “initial reports show so far that about a dozen people are in critical condition.”

She says that number could increase as the investigation continues. Carrie Kinsella said, “I felt a rush it was so fast.”

Twenty-year-old Kourtney McKinnis told the Advocate that the driver of the truck seemed almost unaware of what he had just done. Harrison said police believed the motorist who was arrested was “highly intoxicated” and was being questioned at the police department’s drunken-driving office.
A suspected drunken driver plows his car into a crowd watching the Krewe of Endymion parade at the New Orleans Mardi Gras. Dozens are injured, with 28 people, including a child and a police officer, taken to seven hospitals, five in critical condition.