Media reports that the 29-year-old Uzbek national Sayfullo Saipov was heard shouting, "Allahu Akbar!" ("God is great!") couldn't be officially confirmed. Police did say that statements uttered by Saipov when he was arrested made the killings an act of terror.
Saipov had a Florida address on his driver's license but this summer moved to Gennessee Avenue in Paterson with his girlfriend and three young children, a law enforcement source confirmed.
The truck was rented from a Home Depot in Passaic, where Saipov left his car, another told Daily Voice.
Both sites were cordoned off Tuesday night.
New Jersey State Police joined members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force dispatched from Washington D.C.
The rental truck entered the West Street path at Houston Street, several blocks north of the World Trade Center, and headed south, barreling over pedestrians and bicyclists, just after 3 p.m., New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill said.
After going several blocks along the path, the truck hit a school bus -- injuring two adults and two children -- at Chambers Street, O'Neill said at a news conference.
Saipov then "jumped out with what appeared to be paintball and pellet guns that looked like actual firearms and began shooting," a source at the scene told Daily Voice. "An [NYPD] officer lit him up."
Police colleagues then took him into custody.
"He wasn't dead," the source said, adding that Saipov was taken to Bellevue Hospital.
O'Neill later confirmed that report.
An officer was also wounded, but authorities characterized the injury as minor.
The West Side Highway was closed in the area.
"He would've been headed straight to Goldman-Sachs if he didn't hit that bus," a source at the scene told Daily Voice.
Six males were pronounced dead at the scene and two others at an area hospital, authorities said.
"This was an act of terror, a particularly cowardly act of terror, aimed at innocent civilians," Mayor Bill de Blasio said, while urging citizens to "be vigilant."
Gov. Andrew Cuomo cited a "new tactic" of terrorism carried out by "lone wolves."
"There isn't any evidence of an ongoing threat or an additional threat," the governor said during the news conference with the police commissioner and mayor.
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