Shocking new footage of a car barreling into pedestrians in Times Square has emerged at the murder trial of Bronx man Richard Rojas.
Surveillance video released by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office shows a burgundy sedan driven by Rojas making a sharp U-turn on 7th Street.
The car then drives over the sidewalk, ramming down everyone in its way across three city blocks at incredible speeds.
Rojas is facing life in prison on charges of murder, attempted murder and aggravated vehicular homicide for the May 18, 2017 incident. His trial began on Monday.
In the video, bodies are seen strewn above and below the car as it continues on its path of destruction.
It crashes against a curb and ends up with its two side wheels in the air. Rojas then gets out of the car, jumps up and down and flails his arms.
A traffic cop tackles him, and other pedestrians help hold him down until police arrive.
Ava Elsman told jurors that she remembered ‘just trying to lay there [and] not die’ as she bled out.
She was only 13 at the time, and her family had just arrived in the city that same morning from Portage, Michigan. Her sister Alyssa died from her injuries.
‘I just looked up and I saw the car turn and that was the last thing I saw,’ Ava Elsman, now 18, told jurors.
‘I was in and out of consciousness,’ Ava said, according to the New York Post. ‘Someone told me to put my leg down or I would bleed out.’
She suffered broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a fractured pelvis and compound fractures in her leg. She remembered ‘just trying to lay there [and] not die.’
Rojas, 31, admitted to smoking marijuana laced with PCP before the incident, which left 22 other people injured. The Navy veteran faces a life sentence if convicted and has has previously served time in military prison.
The two-minute, 34-second video was released as evidence in Rojas’ murder trial.
It includes surveillance footage from multiple cameras spanning the three blocks in Times Square where the attack took place.
Terrified pedestrians are seen running away from the speeding car as it wantonly mows down innocent people.
Injured passersby double over in pain as the car runs them over and keeps going.
The car eventually comes to a halt after it crashes against a pole on the curb.
Rojas gets out and is apprehended by a traffic cop and passersby until officers arrive.
After the attack, Ava Elsman spent several months in rehab and couldn’t walk again until September 2017, four months after the horrific scene in Times Square.
‘I just looked up and I saw the car turn and that was the last thing I saw,’ Ava said.
‘Everything went black but I heard the engine running. I could hear people screaming and running but it was all black.’
She said she woke up with people around her but ‘could not physically feel anything because all of the blood I was losing.’
A stranger told her to put her leg down or she would bleed out.
At the hospital, she asked her mom about her sister.
‘[Her] face dropped,’ Ava recalled. ‘When there were no words, I knew exactly what happened.’
She now works as a restaurant hostess in Michigan.
It’s hard because there are a lot of things I’ve done in my life I want [Alyssa] to physically see,’ Ava said. ‘I know in spirit she can see me [but] I physically want to give her a hug.’
‘A whole piece that was ripped out of my life. I get jealous watching people with their families because I don’t have that anymore.’
Alyssa Elsman is the only person who died in the attack. She had graduated high school the year before.
Her principal described her as ‘bright, thoughtful, quiet, terrific sense of humor – so when I first heard the story, I glance at my phone real fast, but could not even imagine that it affected one of us,’ according to CBS News.
The Elsmans had gotten to New York City that same morning, the New York Daily News reports.
Richard Rojas screamed ‘I want to kill them all!’ after he rammed into the crowd, the court heard.
The jury also heard that the 31-year-old military veteran was well aware of what he was doing during the 2017 carnage, despite his defense’s claims that he wasn’t of sound mind.
Rojas crashed into helpless tourists who were visiting ‘the crossroads of the world.’
It was ‘impossible for him not to know exactly what was happening,’ prosecutor Alfred Peterson said in his opening statement. ‘But he didn’t stop.’
Rojas enlisted in the Navy in 2011 and served for part of 2012 aboard the USS Carney, a destroyer. Rojas spent his final months in the Navy at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.
In 2012, he was arrested and accused of beating a cab driver whom he said had disrespected him by trying to charge too much, according to the arrest report.
The arresting officer said Rojas screamed, ‘My life is over!’ as he was being detained. After his arrest, Rojas told the officer he was going to kill all police and military police he might see after his release from jail, the Jacksonville sheriff´s office report stated.
Alan Ceballos, an attorney who represented Rojas in that case, said the state charges were dropped after the military stepped in to take jurisdiction over the criminal case.
Navy records show that in 2013 Rojas spent two months at a naval prison in Charleston, South Carolina. He was discharged in 2014 as the result of a special court martial, a Navy official said.