NEW YORK – The driver of a U-Haul truck that barreled through a New York City neighborhood, killing a food delivery worker and injuring eight other people, will have to undergo a psychiatric evaluation while in custody, a judge ordered Wednesday.
Weng Sor, who was charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with Monday’s deadly rampage, made his first court appearance in Brooklyn. The judge ordered him to remain in custody without bail.
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Police have said he was suffering from an apparent mental health crisis when he mowed down bicyclists, moped riders and at least one pedestrian over 48 minutes.
Police said Sor, 62, referred to an “invisible object” that came at him, prompting him to go careening through streets before a police cruiser pinned the truck against a building near the entrance to a tunnel leading from Brooklyn to Manhattan.
After his arrest, Sor told police he believed it was “judgment day” and was aiming the truck at “the people that disturbed him the most,” Assistant District Attorney David Ingle said at the court hearing. He said Sor told the officers, “I wanted to end by taking out enemies. Shoot me, I will not give in.”
Sor is expected to be back in court on March 16.
The U-Haul struck three people on mopeds, three people on bicycles, one person on an e-bike and one person who was on foot as the truck moved through a busy section of Brooklyn, just north of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge along New York Harbor, police said. The victims ranged in age from 30 to 66.
The truck also rammed a police car, injuring the officer inside.
Sor’s son told The Associated Press earlier this week that his father had a history of mental illness. Records show he was convicted and served time for multiple acts of violence, including stabbing his own brother.
Sor, who lived in Las Vegas with his mother, came to New York last week after spending time in Florida and was pulled over twice in the U-Haul in the days prior to the attack, police said.
Sor’s criminal history includes stabbing his brother in Las Vegas, for which he served time in a Nevada prison, according to court and prison records.