Sunday night [December 20, 2015], a woman with a toddler in her car drove down a sidewalk on the Las Vegas strip in what police are now calling an “intentional” act.
Swerving her 1996 Oldsmobile, the unidentified suspect injured dozens of pedestrians on the sidewalk near the Paris Las Vegas and Planet Hollywood Hotels near the ongoing Miss Universe pageant. Initially driving away from the scene, the woman would later turn herself in to hotel security.
“At this point we are treating this as an intentional act,”
began Captain Dan McGrath of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police department. “She is in the detention center right now. She is speaking to detectives. They are drawing her blood, and I expect her to be charged in the next few hours.”
It has been confirmed that the driver, in her 20s, drove off the sidewalk after a first collision, then drove back on to hit more pedestrians. There is also the possibility of the driver swerving back on the sidewalk a third time. Police say they will be using security footage to piece together the deadly incident.
“Due to the area we’re in–with numerous cameras belonging to the hotel, surveillance cameras and our RTC cameras–we will comb through that footage to get a detailed idea of what occurred,” said Deputy Chief Zimmerman.
Witnesses along the Strip recall the disturbing scene as they watched the vehicle, going 30 to 40 miles per hour, mow pedestrians down. “It was just massacring people,” Justin Cochrane said. Cochrane, a property manager from Santa Barbara, California, was having dinner at a sidewalk restaurant when the  violent act occurred. “Why would it slow to go around and then accelerate again? I thought ‘It’s a crazy person’,” he said.
Of the 36 injured, 9 patients remain in critical condition, including an 11-year old child. The victim killed has been confirmed to be an adult, however no further information has been released on their identity. The child that was with the suspect was not injured,
No relation has been found between this incident and the Miss Universe pageant that was happening nearby. The police have ruled out any connections to terrorism, and will continue to provide more information as it becomes available.