• 10 people injured in shooting in New York City
• FBI says New Orleans attack suspect ‘acted alone’
LAS VEGAS: A Tesla Cybertruck exploded in flames outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on Wednesday, killing the driver and injuring seven other people, and the FBI was investigating whether the explosion was an act of terrorism or had any connection to the attack on the New Orleans truck. officials said.
Separately, 10 people were injured in a mass shooting in the Queens borough of New York City late on New Year’s Day, police said at a news conference early Thursday.
Videos taken by witnesses inside and outside the Las Vegas hotel showed the vehicle exploding and flames coming out of it while outside the hotel.
The incident occurred just hours after a man drove a truck into a crowd of New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans, killing 15 people.
The Trump International Hotel is part of the Trump Organization, the company of President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on January 20.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a key supporter of Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign and is also an adviser to the incoming president.
“Obviously, a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel — there are a lot of questions we have to answer,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at an afternoon news conference.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeremy Schwartz later told reporters that it was still unclear whether the explosion was an act of terrorism. “I know everyone is interested in that word and trying to see if we can say, ‘Hey, this is a terrorist attack.’ That’s our goal and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Schwartz said.
He added that the FBI had identified the person driving the vehicle, which had been rented in Colorado, but was not yet ready to publicly identify the driver.
Musk said the explosion was not related to the Cybertruck itself.
“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried on the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is not related to the vehicle itself,” Musk said in a post on vehicle was positive at the time of the explosion.”
Telemetry involves the automatic collection of data from remote sources and transmitting it to a central source so that it can then be analyzed.
One person was found dead inside the 2024 Cybertruck and seven people suffered minor injuries from the explosion, McMahill said. He added that both the Cybertruck and the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack were rented through the car-sharing service Turo.
New York shooting
The New York Police Department said the 10 injured in the incident outside a private events club Wednesday night included six women and four men and all were expected to recover.
The incident occurred when three or four men opened fire on a crowd outside the club, the NYPD said. Users took to social media to express their shock at the incident and share photos of the police deployment at the scene.
Police ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack.
‘The suspect acted alone’
Meanwhile, U.S. authorities were scrambling to locate suspects linked to the New Orleans and Las Vegas incidents and also investigating possible terrorist angles.
The FBI said the U.S. Army veteran who drove a truck into a crowd of revelers on New Year’s Day had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State but acted alone in the attack.
The suspect, who was shot dead at the scene after firing at police, has been identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texan who once served in Afghanistan.
He drove from Houston to New Orleans on Dec. 31 and posted five videos on Facebook between 1:29 and 3:02 a.m. the morning of the attack in which he said he supported the Islamic State militant group with fighters in Iraq and Syria, the FBI said. .
The FBI said there did not appear to be any link between the New Orleans attack and the Las Vegas episode.
Published in Dawn, January 3, 2025
