Trial starts for driver who ran down Times Square tourists

By TOM HAYS and MICHAEL R. SISAK
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The man behind the wheel of the car that barreled through crowds of pedestrians in New York City’s Times Square, killing a woman and injuring 22 other people, is finally on trial five years later. A jury heard opening statements Monday in the case of Richard Rojas, a 31-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who told police after his arrest that he had been smoking marijuana laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP before plowing through helpless tourists in the Manhattan landmark known as “the crossroads of the world.” Eighteen-year-old Alyssa Elsman of Michigan was killed. Rojas pleaded not guilty in 2017.