BARCELONA – A senior police official in Barcelona has confirmed that regional police troopers have shot and killed the driver of a vehicle that drove through a police checkpoint and struck two officers.
However, Major Josep Lluis Trapero of the Catalonia region’s police force says the driver is not thought to have been involved in the van attack that killed 13 people earlier Thursday night.
Trapero says the dead driver “doesn’t have any connection with the terrorist attack we are investigating.”
2 police officers run over at a security checkpoint in a second vehicle attack in Barcelona https://t.co/VJaLVGAjy9 https://t.co/mXrZbGUptu
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 17, 2017
He says a female officer who was run down by the vehicle suffered a broken leg.
Hours after the van attack on a downtown pedestrian plaza, the police force for Spain’s Catalonia region had said that a car hit two officers at a traffic blockade on the outskirts of Barcelona.
Barcelona police said that after running the checkpoint, the vehicle and its driver were intercepted about 10 kilometers (6 miles) outside of the downtown area where the original attack happened.
That’s when the driver was shot and killed.
