Investigators at the scene of a terrorist attack in New York, where a man mowed people down by driving a rented truck down a popular cycle path on Tuesday afternoon, have found a note at the scene referencing Islamic State, the governor of New York said on Wednesday morning.
Andrew Cuomo told CBS the investigation into the attack was continuing but said law enforcement officers had possession of the note.
It was reportedly found inside the truck and mentioned Isis.
The man who rented a pickup truck and drove it for about a mile on the bike lane on the west side of Manhattan was in critical condition in a New York City hospital after being shot in the abdomen by a police officers, but is expected to survive.
Cuomo called him a “depraved coward”, and insisted the attack “did not instill terror” among New Yorkers.
The stretch of cycle lane in lower Manhattan near the site of the 9/11 attack remained sealed off on Wednesday morning. Although the bodies of the eight dead and the 11 injured had been quickly taken away after the attack, mangled bicycles were still strewn along the approximately one-mile length of path where people were struck.
The truck was also still at the scene, with its smashed front visible. It had collided with a school bus at the corner of Chambers Street, bringing the rampage to a halt. The school bus had been removed.
Almost two miles of the cycle lane, which is heavily used by joggers and cyclists for commuting and leisure, was blocked off, as were some adjoining roads.
The site is just a few blocks from the One World Trade Center skyscraper that was only recently completed on the site of the original Twin Towers, destroyed in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, killing almost 3,000 people.
Tuesday’s attack represented the highest death toll from a terrorist incident in the city since 9/11. In the intervening years there have been a number of attempted attacks and smaller incidents, including a bombing just over a year ago, for which the perpetrator was just convicted, but none taking as many as the eight lives lost on Tuesday.
Despite statements of defiance from public officials and displays of resilience in the city as residents went about their day and attended the Halloween Parade on Tuesday evening, there were still some rattled nerves.
A gun incident in the East Village in Manhattan on Wednesday morning left two people shot and lying injured on the ground close to the busy intersection at Astor Place.
The police reported that a man and a woman had been shot near the Cooper Union college there, and social media lit up with reports of “bodies strewn across the concrete, taken to hospital moments later.”
Meanwhile police and the FBI urged members of the public to give them any photos or video of the attack that could help.
Donald Trump took aim at Democrats and an immigration lottery program in the wake of the attack – prompting accusations he was immediately politicising the tragedy.
In a press conference on Tuesday evening, the New York police commissioner, James O’Neill, asked about reports that the driver of the truck shouted “Allahu Akbar”, meaning “God is great” in Arabic, after carrying out his attack, said that while he could not confirm that, the way the incident unfolded was significant. “The MO [modus operandi] of the attack is consistent with what has been going on,” O’Neill said.
The victims reflected a city that is a melting pot and a magnet for visitors: one of the dead was from Belgium; five were from Argentina and were celebrating the 30th anniversary of a school graduation, according to officials. The injured included students and staffers on a school bus that the driver rammed.
“This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians, aimed at people going about their lives who had no idea what was about to hit them,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat.
The suspect in the attack is 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, a national of Uzbekistan who immigrated to the US in 2010 and was a driver for the car service Uber, living in New Jersey.
The president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has sent his condolences to Donald Trump and offered his country’s assistance in investigating the attack. Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan and is one of the most closed-off post-Soviet republics.
Investigators converged on an apartment building in Patterson, New Jersey, where the suspect is understood to have lived.
