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| Photo Credit: AP. |
One person was confirmed dead and 17 others injured when a vehicle struck a crowd gathered at a Pennsylvania bar for a fundraiser for victims of a house fire that killed 10 people earlier this month, The Associated Press reports.
The crash occurred
at about 6:15 p.m. on Saturday outside the Intoxicology Department bar in
Berwick, the venue for an all-day fundraising event to benefit victims of the August
5 blaze, that killed seven adults and three children in Nescopeck, according to
The Associated Press.
The suspect
had earlier beaten his mother to death nearby before crashing his vehicle into
the crowd.
The driver
was identified by Pennsylvania State Police as 24-year-old Adrian Oswaldo Sura
Reyes of Nescopeck. On Sunday morning he was charged with two counts of
criminal homicide.
The
Associated Press reported that shortly after the crash was reported, troopers
were called about a man “physically assaulting” a woman less than a mile away
in Nescopeck. When troopers arrived at the scene, they determined that Sura
Reyes had been arrested by local police and the woman he assaulted was dead.
Luzerne
County Coroner Francis Hacken confirmed Sunday that the victim, Rosa D. Reyes,
56, of Nescopect who died of multiple traumatic injuries after she was struck by
a vehicle and then attacked with a hammer was the mother of suspect Sura Reyes.
The Associated
Press quoted a hospital spokesperson for Geisinger Medical Center as saying it
received 15 patients after the crash, and five remained in critical condition
while three were in fair condition.
Sura Reyes
is being held in Columbia County Prison and would appear in court on August 29
for preliminary hearing. He was denied bail.
Funerals
were held Friday and would continue for other victims on Sunday and Monday.
10 relatives
of a firefighter were killed early this month at a house in northern
Pennsylvania in a deadly fire. Three of the victims were children while the
remaining seven were adults.
The dead
children were of ages 5, 6, 7 while the seven adult were in their late teens as
well as a 79-year-old man. The volunteer firefighter was called in to battle
the fire but discovered that the victims were his own family.
Harold Baker,
a volunteer firefighter in the town of Nescopeck, said the 10 victims included
his son, daughter, father-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, three
grandchildren and two other relatives, The Associated Press reported. He added
that his town children and the other young victims were visiting their aunt and
uncle’s home for swimming and other summertime fun when the incident occurred.