Barcelona attack witness saw driver ‘knocking people over at high speed’

JOSEP LAGO/AFP/Getty Images(BARCELONA, Spain) — A tourist who witnessed the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday that left at least 13 dead and more than 50 injured, told ABC News he saw a driver “knocking people over at high-speed.”

In the incident local police called a “terror attack,” a van slammed into pedestrians near Catalunya Square in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas district, a busy tourist area.

Brendon Sissing told ABC News he heard screams of people to his left, and when he looked up, he saw a white van driving at what he estimated to be 50 to 60 miles per hour down a pedestrian walkway.

The van knocked people over, and some people were under the van, but the driver “just kept going,” Sissing said.

The driver stopped opposite to where Sissing was standing, he said, and then the driver kept going.
Sissing ran into a shop, he said. When he left, he heard about five gunshots, so he ran into a second building where construction workers took him in.

One witness told a Spanish television station that after the suspect ran over people in his van for nearly 1,000 feet, the suspect fled into a nearby Turkish restaurant.

Police said one man is in custody in connection with the attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered condolences for the “loss of life and injuries” of “so many innocent people, yet again.”

Tillerson said this incident has “the hallmarks, it appears, of yet another terrorist attack.”

To terrorists around the world, Tillerson said, we are “resolved to find you and bring you to justice.”

Tillerson added that the U.S. stands ready to assist authorities in Barcelona.

Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

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