
Thursday night at around 10:30 PM, a Tunisian truck driver sped down the road to run his truck into a large crowd watching the fireworks in Nice, France.
The police has shot the driver dead, but it was too late. At least 80 people died, including 10 children, 200 injured, and 50 of whom are in critical medical condition.
The BBC reported:
Prosecutor Francois Molins said Bouhlel had driven the lorry 2km (1.2 miles) along the Promenade des Anglais and fired at police before being shot dead.
Other weapons found inside the lorry were replicas or fake.
Also found in the lorry were an ammunition magazine, a fake pistol, a replica Kalashnikov rifle, a replica M16 rifle and a dummy grenade.
There was also a bicycle, empty pallets, documents and a mobile phone. Items were later seized from Bouhlel’s Nice home.
Bouhlel, a chauffeur and delivery man, was “totally unknown to intelligence services… and was never flagged for signs of radicalisation”, Mr Molins said.
Bouhlel was divorced and his ex-wife has been taken into custody.
What witnesses saw
Simon Coates, a solicitor from Leeds told the BBC: “I saw one woman lying on the ground talking to her dead child, as other people desperately did what they could to save their loved ones.
“As the lorry passed by me a young boy of 10 or so just managed to leap to one side and escape by inches. Tragically dozens of those on foot, young and old alike, were not so lucky. Virtually everyone I saw on the promenade was either dead or beyond real help with truly terrible injuries.”
Nader el-Shafei told the BBC he saw the driver face-to-face for about a minute: “He was very nervous… looking for something around him, I kept yelling at him and waving my hands to stop… he picked up his gun and started to shoot police.”
Afterwards he said he ran towards the beach with others, fearing the driver, who was then shot by police, would detonate the lorry.
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