NEW YORK (1010 WINS/AP) -- The wife of a bicycle deliveryman who was critically injured in Monday’s deadly U-Haul rampage spoke out Tuesday as the family’s attorney looks at whether the NYPD’s decision to pursue the truck “triggered” the unhinged driver and put more people at risk.
Mohammed Zakaria Salah Rakchi, 36, remained in a medically induced coma Wednesday.
Rakchi, who emigrated from Algeria three years ago, was hit while running errands after dropping his 7-year-old daughter off at school.
His wife, Nadjet Tchenar, was in tears Tuesday as she spoke about the father of their two young daughters from the office of her family’s attorney, Derek Sells.
“My husband was really a good person, a good father, a loving helper,” Tchenar said. “I’m so sorry about what’s happened to him.”
Rakchi suffered massive head trauma, a subdural hematoma and multiple rib and leg fractures, among other injuries.
Sells’ law firm is conducting an independent investigation into the NYPD’s pursuit of the U-Haul truck and whether the proper police procedures were followed.
Sells questioned whether being chased by police "was a triggering event for this driver and what might have led him to do the things that he did.”
“When you look at the video of the accident and you see the high-speed chase that was taking place, where a police cruiser actually ran up onto a sidewalk,” Sells said.
The suspect in the deadly rampage, Weng Sor, 62, was charged Tuesday with murder and attempted murder.
Sor was suffering an apparent “mental health crisis” and reportedly off his meds during the attack. He allegedly told police an “invisible object” coming toward the U-Haul truck set him off.
“He states when he’s driving his van he sees an ‘invisible object’ come towards the car. At that point, he says, ‘I’ve had enough’ and he goes on his rampage," NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said at a press conference Tuesday. “There was no object.”
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 Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Dyker Heights. One of the victims, a 44-year-old single father on a moped, died from a head injury he suffered.
Sor was arrested in Red Hook after an NYPD cruiser cut off the truck near the entrance to the Battery Tunnel—48 minutes into the rampage.
The scope and length of the destruction has led to questions about the NYPD's response and whether the pursuit — which at one point involved a police car speeding after the U-Haul up onto the sidewalk as a man dove to safety — put more people in harm's way.
Sells said his office is going to look at the NYPD’s vehicle pursuit policies “to see whether or not what they did was an in accordance with their actual policies.”
NYPD policy requires officers to stop chasing vehicles when the risks to police and the public “outweigh the danger to the community.”
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Tuesday that the department is reviewing its response.
Rakchi was the first person struck by the truck, according to a timeline released by police. He was hit at 10:17 a.m. at Fourth Avenue and 55th Street in Sunset Park by the driver, who then traveled south to Bay Ridge, where most of the victims were found.
It's unclear exactly when police started the pursuit, but NYPD officials have said Sor’s rampage had already begun by the time cops started pursuing the U-Haul truck.
The NYPD posted body camera video to social media Tuesday showing officers urgently clearing a street full of elementary school children near where the U-Haul driver was wreaking havoc.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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