Several people injured when vehicle plows into Christmas parade in Wisconsin
Several people were injured when a vehicle plowed into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Sunday evening.
“Please avoid the downtown area for the time being,” the police department requested at about 5:30 p.m. local time as investigators descended on the chaotic scene about 20 miles west of Milwaukee.
One video posted on Twitter showed a speeding red SUV careening alongside marchers and barely missing a little girl whose back was to the street as she danced to the drums and music.
That SUV would go on to injure seven people, the Wisconsin Freeman reported. There were also possible shots fired, reported WGN-TV, and the parade was evacuated.
“It just all happened so fast,” local alderman and state treasurer candidate Angelito Tenorio told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He had just finished marching in the parade, which traverses the city’s downtown every year, with family and friends, and was walking back toward Main Street.
“As we were walking back in between the buildings that we saw an SUV cross over, just put the pedal to the metal and just zooming full speed along the parade route,” he said. “And then we heard a loud bang, and just deafening cries and screams from people who are struck by the vehicle. And then we saw people running away or stopping crying, and there are people on the ground who looked like they’d been hit by the vehicle.”
There was a heavy police presence after the vehicle busted through barriers and speeding into the roadway where the parade was processing, the Journal Sentinel reported.
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