VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — At least nine people were killed when a man drove into a crowd at a Filipino heritage festival in the Canadian city of Vancouver, and an unknown number were injured, police said Sunday.
The vehicle entered the street at 8:14 p.m. on Saturday and struck people attending the Lapu Lapu Day festival, the Vancouver Police Department said in a social media post.
A 30-year-old Vancouver man was arrested at the scene and the department’s Major Crime Section is overseeing the investigation, police said.
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“At this time, we are confident that this incident was not an act of terrorism,” the police department posted early Sunday.
Interim Vancouver Police Chief Steve Rai told a news conference that the man was arrested after initially being apprehended by bystanders.
Video circulating on social media shows a young man in a black hoodie with his back against a chain link fence, alongside a security guard and surrounded by bystanders screaming and swearing at him.
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“I’m sorry,” the man says, holding his hand to his head.
Rai declined to comment on the video but said the person in custody was a “lone male” who was “known to police in certain circumstances.”
The festival was being held in a South Vancouver neighborhood. Video posted on social media showed victims and debris strewn across a long stretch of road, with at least seven people lying immobile on the ground. A black SUV with a crumpled front section could be seen in still photos from the scene.
Carayn Nulada said she pulled her granddaughter and grandson off the street and used her body to shield them from the SUV. She said her daughter suffered a narrow escape.
“The car hit her arm and she fell down, but she got up, looking for us because she is scared,” said Nulada, who described children screaming, and pale-faced victims lying on the ground or wedged under vehicles.
“I saw people running and my daughter was shaking.”
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Nulada was in Vancouver General Hospital’s emergency room early Sunday morning, trying to find news about her brother, who was run down in the attack and suffered multiple broken bones.
Doctors identified him by presenting the family with his wedding ring in a pill bottle and said he was stable but would be facing surgery.