New York attack victims honoured as city, investigators, seek answers

The eight people killed in a truck driver's rampage were honored by friends and strangers with a nighttime walk down the riverfront esplanade where the victims died.

People light candles as they gather to remember the victims of the recent truck attack during a candle light walk along the Hudson River near the crime scene on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, in New York. (Photo | Associated Press)

NEW YORK: The eight people killed in a truck driver's rampage were honored by friends and strangers with a nighttime walk down the riverfront esplanade where the victims died as both investigators and terror-weary New Yorkers tried to make sense of the crime.

Some of the marchers carried candles as city lights twinkled on the water. Others pushed bicycles in solidary with the victims, who were cut down on the long bike path that runs the length of Manhattan's Hudson River waterfront.

The mourners included Harry Kassen, a student at the Manhattan school where one of the victims, Nicholas Cleves, 23, worked part-time.

"You never think it is going to be someone you know," said Kassen, 17. He said he'd just recently worked with Cleves on lighting and sound for a school performance.

"We were up in the tech booth, chatting. Then, two weeks later, here we are. And he's gone," Kassen said.

A police officer stands guard as Simon Rubin, 25, arranges flowers at a
makeshift memorial to remember the victims of the recent truck attack
near the crime scene on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, in New York. (AP)

The march began near the spot where authorities say Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, steered a rented truck onto a bike bath and sped south toward the World Trade Center, striking cyclists and pedestrians in his bath.

He was shot by a police officer after crashing the truck into a school bus and arraigned Wednesday on terrorism charges.

A woman holds an Argentinian flag as people walk holding lit candles
along the Hudson River near the crime scene to remember the victims
of the recent truck attack on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, in New York. (AP)

Two women carried the flag of Argentina, in remembrance of the five people from that country who were killed when Saipov's truck plowed into a group of friends who had come to New York together to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation.

The memorial walk and vigil took place hours after several of the Argentinian survivors of the attack visited a severely injured and hospitalized member of their group, Martin Marro, of Newton, Massachusetts, to tell him for the first time which of his friends had died.

"I think Martin had to know the truth. Maybe he already imagined that but now he knows and is a step that his friends wanted to take before returning to Argentina," Argentina's consul in New York, Mateo Estreme, told reporters in Spanish.

"It was something very emotional for all of them." New York officials on Thursday began to put up temporary concrete barriers at 57 locations where it is possible for vehicles to turn onto the bike path where the attack took place.