A deranged U-Haul driver who killed a father of three and injured seven others has claimed he saw an “unseen object” coming towards his car, which led to the vicious attack.
Weng Sor, 62, was charged with two counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder after the more than an hour-long killing spree in Brooklyn on Monday.
Police have revealed that the 62-year-old was “suffering from a mental crisis” that claimed the life of Yijie Ye, 44, adding that Sor has a criminal history and was about to commit suicide at the time.
“He says when he drives his van he sees an invisible object coming toward the car and at that point he says, ‘I’ve had enough,’ and he rages on,” NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told a news conference, in which the indictment is announced.
‘There was no object.’
Disturbed U-Haul driver Weng Sor, 62, who killed a father of three and injured seven others, has claimed he saw an “unseen object” coming towards his car, which led to the vicious attack
Police said the family confirmed he was “out of medication” and Sor reportedly asked to be shot by authorities.
“We have a lot of information from his family who have confirmed that he has come off his medication,” Essig said.
“He says to the police when he’s arrested, ‘You should have shot me.’
Five days before the incident, Sor, who was renting a pickup truck in West Palm Beach, Fla., was pulled over on the Belt Parkway on February 1 for speeding and driving a commercial vehicle.
He was also pulled over for reckless driving in South Carolina on Feb. 5, police told the New York Post.
Relatives grieving the loss of Ye, a father of three, who was the only victim killed in the murderous rampage, told the outlet he took a job as an Uber Eats driver to help with the to help feed his children.
The 44-year-old died after Sor hurtled down the Brooklyn street and hit Ye while riding his bike, the moment captured on surveillance footage.
“He’s a single father and divorced his wife six years ago,” Yes’s cousin, who asked to be identified as Mike, told the outlet Tuesday.
“He’s supportive and looking after his kids on his own – that’s why he took the job at Uber Eats,” the cousin said. “It was to make money to support his family.”
In a statement to the press on an unrelated matter, Mayor Eric Adams said, “I know one of the incidents is a really horrifying story.”
“A father was raising his children, his little children, and he was the one who died in this incident. I visited two of the other families in the hospital.
“And it was just one, just one, it’s a terrible incident. Our office will try to be there for the family as much as possible. But it was just really despicable what happened.’
Another victim was in an induced coma, while the remaining victims are expected to recover.
Sor crashed his truck into the sidewalk, hitting a cyclist, pedestrian and police officer in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn on Monday.
He was beating people along the road and creating at least seven different crime scenes, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at the time, telling police who tried to stop him, “Shoot me. I do not stop.”
When he was eventually arrested, he told officers he wanted to “die.”
Two of the victims were in critical condition, two in serious condition, and four sustained minor injuries, according to the FDNY.
Sor’s son said his father – who police told is “emotionally disturbed” and homeless – frequently skipped his medication.
Sor’s U-Haul, which he rented in upstate New York, was eventually stopped in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn
Surveillance footage shows the U-Haul seconds before hitting a cyclist in Bay Ridge
“A lot of times he’s going off his meds and doing things like that,” Stephen Sor, 30, said in an interview with the AP outside his Brooklyn home after the attack.
“This isn’t the first time he’s been arrested. It’s not the first time he’s gone to jail.”
Court records show Sor was sentenced to one to three years in Nevada prison in 2015 for stabbing his brother in Las Vegas.
The son said his father lived in Las Vegas with his own mother and they did not communicate often.
He said he was shocked when his father showed up in Brooklyn in the middle of the night about a week ago.
He described his relationship with his father as “rocky,” the AP reported, and said his father had a history of mental illness.
He said his father often refused to take his medication and was frequently disruptive.
“I try to just keep my distance as long as he leaves us alone,” he said.
Daryl Singer, Sor’s brother-in-law, told the New York Post: “He’s schizophrenic. He’s crazy.’
He added: “I’ve always said that he’ll probably kill himself one day, that’s how I saw it. He just doesn’t know how to lead a normal life.”
Singer said Sor was known for “making threats” and said it was unsafe for him to be on the streets.
“I’m not surprised,” Singer said. “He belongs in an institution for the rest of his life… bedridden away from everyone.
“Because he might freak out. He could just kill someone.”
Another video shows a pedestrian who narrowly escapes the raging motorist
Sor’s abandoned U-Haul is pictured Monday in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn
Sor rented the U-Haul from out of state. His son said he arrived in New York unannounced last week
Police said Sor had a long criminal record, and his son said he had been in prison before
Debris was left on the sidewalk after Sor’s deranged killing spree
A street in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn is cordoned off while multiple crime scenes are investigated
Singer, who lives in Las Vegas, said Sor moved to Florida several months ago with no explanation.
“Mother does everything for him because she is all he has. She helped him so much, rented him a room, and he screwed up by getting kicked out of three different places he’s lived,” Singer told the New York Post.
“He used to work, and one day he decided to buy a bus ticket and go to Florida.
‘And that was the last I heard from anyone about him. None of the family members talk about anything he did.
“They’re scared of him,” he said of the family.
‘He just got hit in the head. I do not know why. Everyone else in the family is normal. He’s the only one who isn’t.’
Singer told the newspaper Sor’s behavior had been erratic for many years.
“When he lived here, we had dinner before, and at first everything seemed normal,” he recalls.
“He just doesn’t take any medication for his problem and starts talking weird stuff – Church and God and Satan and they’re all going to be killed pretty soon.
“His mom tells him, ‘Stop it,’ and he just keeps rambling.”
The rampage began around 11 a.m. Monday when he struck several people on 5th Avenue and the Bay Ridge Parkway and then drove north.
Harrowing surveillance footage from some of the businesses that line his route shows him mowing into a cyclist.
He was finally pulled over at Red Hook 30 minutes later.
Suriel Ponce, a 26-year-old construction worker, tried to chase the U-Haul and yelled at the driver to stop.
“We started running and yelled for the guy to stop and when we came back the guy he hit was on the ground,” Ponce told .
“He was an Asian who was bleeding from the mouth. We saw that they put him in an ambulance and he didn’t move. We grabbed a GrubHub bag that was lying on the floor. We weren’t sure if the GrubHub bag was his.”
Ponce continued, “The U-Haul rider took the bike completely, took it down a few streets.
“He ran a red light. He didn’t stop – people were screaming. It was really bad.’
Ponce said he and his boss chased the U-Haul down the street and yelled at him to stop.
“We figured the guy didn’t notice or hear anything, and we tried to tell him to stop,” he said.
“He just kept going and didn’t stop. Just keep going.’
Ponce said Sor returned and drove past them again 15 minutes later.
“He came back around the block a second time,” Ponce said.
‘The first time he came by he was already beating up people on the block. It was crazy.’
NYPD Bomb Squad members investigate a rental truck that was pulled over in New York on Monday, February 13, 2023 and the driver arrested
The scene in Bay Ridge on Monday after the U-Haul truck crashed into pedestrians and a police officer
The inside of the U-Haul driven by Weng Sor, 62, today
Another man who just drove past Ray told he owned a business down the street and was in his car on his way to work when he saw the driver at the U-Haul on Bay Ridge Parkway.
“He was driving erratically down the street and the cops were chasing him,” Ray said.
“He cut through a light and cut right in front of me.
“He almost ran over my client who was crossing the street with his child in a stroller.
“I saw the truck with a scooter stuck in the front bumper.”
The incident coincides with the first day of the death penalty trial of Sayfullo Saipov, who killed eight people in a rented Home Depot truck on the West Side Highway in 2017.
Sewell, the NYPD commissioner, said there was no evidence Monday’s incident was linked to terror.