Rocco Parascandola, Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
(TNS)
The unhinged U-Haul driver who mowed down nine people — killing one of them — may have been trying to die by “suicide by cop,” police sources said Tuesday.
Detectives are investigating the possibility Weng Sor wanted to end his life when he made his terrifying tour through Brooklyn that sent scores of pedestrians scrambling for cover.
“Shoot me! I’m not stopping!” Sor, 62, yelled at police as they took him into custody following the wild pursuit. Sor was in police custody awaiting criminal charges Tuesday.
Investigators have determined that he purposefully aimed for the people he struck, who varied in age and nationality, police sources said.
A law enforcement source said Sor’s motive may ultimately prove hard to determine.
“I don’t know if we’re going to know because we’re trying to apply a rational explanation to an irrational guy,” the source said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he sad, ‘Oh man, the Eagles lost.’ He’s that erratic.”
“I don’t put a lot of faith in anything the guy says — he wanted to die, he wished to be hit by police bullets,” the source added. “Some of what he says is concerning. But he’s a wild card.”
Sor’s rampage began at 10:17 a.m. Monday at Fourth Ave. and 54th St. in Sunset Park before moving south into Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, cops said. At one point in the rampage, Sor took his U-Haul truck onto the sidewalk. He then changed directions and headed north toward downtown Brooklyn.
A 44-year-old man on an e-bike died at NYU Langone Hospital after Sor rammed into him near the corner of Fifth Ave. and Bay Ridge Parkway during the middle of the rampage.
The man died from “blunt force trauma” caused by Sor’s U-Haul truck, police said.
“The truck was dragging the bike down the street but he didn’t stop,” Kida Rexhepi, 41, who owns a business along the street, told the Daily News Monday. “He went down the block and came around again but kept going.”
Sor escaped onto the Gowanus Expressway and was eventually captured by the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in Red Hook about 90 minutes after his spree began.
Cops say Sor was born in Malaysia and is a U.S. citizen. He was sentenced to a year in a Nevada prison for stabbing his brother in Las Vegas in 2015, records show.
Relatives said Sor suffers from mental illness.
“Very frequently he’ll choose to skip out on his medications and do something like this,” his son Stephen Sor told the Associated Press. “This isn’t the first time he’s been arrested. It’s not the first time he’s gone to jail.”
Sor had been living out of the U-Haul, which contained boxes, clothes and other items. The vehicle was rented Feb. 1 out of West Palm Beach, Fla., according to U-Haul. It was due back March 3 at the same location.
Earlier this month, Sor received two summons on the Belt Parkway for speeding and for using a commercial vehicle on the parkway.
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