WASHINGTON (AP) — District of Columbia authorities say a car drove through a crowd near an Occupy DC protest and struck three people.
D.C. fire department spokesman Lon Walls said Saturday morning that the three were transported to two area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries. He said none was in critical condition but that some injuries were "fairly serious."
Lt. Kelvin Cusick of the D.C. police department said early Saturday that the driver was cited and released. He said he did not know yet what the driver was cited for, or whether he'd been given a blood alcohol test.
"It's being investigated as an accident at this time," he said of the collision, which occurred at about 10 p.m.
The names of the parties were not immediately available.
Hundreds of protesters affiliated with Occupy DC shut down streets Friday near the city's convention center in downtown Washington, where a conservative group was holding a gathering.
Fox 5 reported that the vehicle struck two people, kept driving, and then struck a third person. Cusick said he could not confirm this account because the full police report hadn't been filed.
Police said the accident victims were all conscious.
One protester, 29-year-old Jesse Folks of Riverdale, Md., told The Washington Post that he was standing in the street with other demonstrators near the convention center when the car "just gassed it into a bunch of people."
"We were in the street, but this guy didn't even give us a chance to get out of the way," Folks said.
