NEW YORK — A rampaging U-Haul driver leading cops on a wild chase through Brooklyn Monday struck six men, a woman and a cop and sent other pedestrians on the sidewalk scurrying for their lives, police said.
Cops tried to pull the 62-year-old driver over at 10:49 a.m. near Fifth Avenue and 75th Street in the Bay Ridge neighborhood but he refused to stop, sources said.
At one point during the ensuing chase, he said, “Shoot me, I’m not stopping,” according to a police source.
In one video posted online from that location, an oblivious pedestrian can be seen slowly walking between curbside trees and storefronts when suddenly the U-Haul driver mounts the sidewalk barreling in his direction.
The shocked pedestrian, who appeared to be looking at his phone, stepped toward the storefront then dove toward the street, barely avoiding being mowed down by the speeding U-Haul — and the police car that also jumped the sidewalk in close pursuit.
Less than a second earlier, before mounting the sidewalk, the U-Haul driver clipped a moped rider who was sent skidding along the street, videos show.
“It was very fast, the truck and the police were following him,” said Kida Rexhepi, 41, who owns a business along the street. “He saw the truck coming and he fell on the other side. The car came very close to the store. It was going so fast. I’m like, ‘What happened?’”
The lucky pedestrian, a man in his 60s, escaped with an injured knee. He is a driver at a neighborhood car service.
“He was able to escape, thank God. He’s OK,” said the man’s boss. “I see a big, bang! I came outside. I saw his pants was ripped. It’s not real.”
At some point the driver hit a man believed to be in his 30s on Fourth Avenue near 54th Street in Sunset Park, cops said. That victim was rushed by medics to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in critical condition.
Three men on mopeds were struck by him in Bay Ridge and suffered only minor injuries.
The driver got away on the Gowanus Expressway but was chased by police and arrested nearly five miles away on Hamilton Avenue at Columbia Street near the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in Red Hook.
The suspect got off at the Hamilton Avenue exit at the very start of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, officials said. A highway officer was able to force him to a stop. An aviation unit also tracked him during the chase, police said.
Cops identified him as Weng Sor and say he was born in Malaysia and is a U.S. citizen. He has no prior arrests.
It appears he was living out of the U-Haul, which contained boxes, clothes and other items.
The U-Haul was rented in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Jan. 23, cops said.
Police Commisisoner Keechant Sewell said two of the injuries were critical, two were serious and four were minor.
“At this time we have no indication there is any terrorism involvement in this incident.” Sewell said, noting that the case was still under investigation. “We are still constructing events.”
She said the van was not stolen.
Sewell did not immediately address community concerns about the police car mounting the sidewalk in pursuit.
The NYPD Bomb Squad was called to search the U-Haul as a precaution but no explosives were found.
Earlier this month Sor received two summons on the Belt Parkway for speeding and for using a commercial vehicle on the parkway.
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