A total of 25 police recruits were injured during a training run after a vehicle rammed into them in California, authorities said. Picture: Los Angelese Country Sheriff.
The incident took place on Wednesday when a 22-year-old wrong-way driver plowed his car into a class of 75 recruits, who were running in formation as part of a training exercise, reports Xinhua news agency.
Five of the injured were in critical condition, four in moderate and stable condition and 16 sustained minor injuries, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
The vehicle veered into the group of recruits from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and several other police departments in Southern California at around 6.20am in Whittier, Villanueva said at a news conference.
Officials said the young driver suffered minor injuries and was detained at the scene.
Villanueva said the driver passed a field sobriety test and the cause of the accident “is still unknown at this time”.
Officials said that the investigation is still ongoing.
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A Wisconsin man who was convicted for intentional homicide and injuring dozens more when he drove through a Christmas parade near Milwaukee last year was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Wednesday.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Dorow handed down six consecutive life prison terms to Darrell Brooks, 40, who was found guilty on October 26 of 76 criminal counts, including six counts of intentional homicide.
The judge symbolically added at least another 1 067 years to the life sentences to underscore the severity of the crimes for which she said Brooks showed “no remorse, no empathy”.
“Some people choose a path of evil. And I think, Mr Brooks, you are one of those such persons,” Dorow said, adding that video evidence presented at trial “kept me up at night”.
Brooks deliberately drove a sport utility vehicle through police barricades last November and plowed into crowds of people participating in the annual parade in Waukesha, about 25km west of downtown Milwaukee.