A violent car accident in Rochester, New York after a New Year’s celebration concert by the jam band Moe let out around 12:30 a.m. is being investigated as a potential act of terrorism after authorities report finding the remains of several filled gasoline canisters in the vehicle that caused the accident, the local news website RochesterFirst reports.
As audience members were being escorted across a crosswalk from the Kodak Center in Rochester, a Ford Expedition t-boned an Uber driver coming out of a parking lot just before the crosswalk. The Expedition accelerated and pushed the other vehicle, a Mitsubishi Outlander, into the pedestrians. The cars then burst into flames, with firefighters taking an hour to get the flames under control. The two passengers in the Uber were killed, but the driver escaped and survived, and multiple other pedestrians were injured. The driver of the Expedition was last reported alive but in critical condition.
After the firefighters extinguished the flames, they found more than a dozen gas cans in or around the Expedition. Information about the Expedition driver is scant, with early reports saying it’s a man from Syracuse. Local authorities have called in the FBI as part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force to help investigate.