Heroic Israeli Cop Ends Bulldozer Rampage
Three people were killled and 45 injured in construction vehicle rampage.
JERUSALEM, July 2, 2008 — -- An Israeli Arab used a massive front-end loader to attack people in the heart of Jerusalem today, toppling a city bus, crushing cars and scattering pedestrians before his rampage was ended by a heroic cop who climbed aboard the moving vehicle to shoot the driver dead.
Three Israelis were killed, and at least 45 injured, police said.
Jerusalem police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver of the machine was an Israeli Arab from a Jerusalem village with a criminal background with no known terrorist links.
Three terrorist groups claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli police chief Dudi Cohen said the driver, who worked on a nearby construction project, acted on his own.
"It looks as if it was a spontaneous act," Cohen said.
Friends of the family identified the attacker as Hussam Dwikat, 29. They said he was a devout Muslim, but had no known ties to any militant groups.
The gigantic construction machine charging through Jerusalem's main thoroughfare of Jaffa Road touched off a scene of terror. People fled in panic as the huge vehicle slammed into a city bus, putting a gash in its side and knocking it off its wheels.
"I saw the bulldozer smash the car with its shovel. He smashed the guy sitting in the driver's seat," said Yaakov Ashkenazi, an 18-year-old seminary student.
Sixteen-year-old Eyal Lang Ben-Hur was in a bus when the driver yelled, "Get out of the vehicle! Everyone out!" People fled in a panic, he said, and the bus was hit an instant later.
"I just got off the bus, and I saw the tractor driving and knocking everything down in his path," said 19-year-old soldier Hen Shimon. "Everything he saw he rammed."
Witnesses said a female traffic cop shot at the perpetrator, after which he slumped over with his eyes closed.
A half dozen cars were smashed or flipped by the loader, and a second bus was badly damaged. Immediately people scrambled to help the injured, including women and babies scattered on the street, amid the blare of ruptured car horns.
As rescuers searched the damaged vehicles, the driver suddenly lifted himself back up, the machine lurched and was on the move again, smashing over a police car, witnesses said.
Anti-terror officer Eli Mizrahi was stationed nearby watching for suicide bombers and was sent on his motorbike to catch up with the rampaging loader. Like a scene out of a movie, Mizrahi climbed aboard the loader as the driver gunned the engine.
"He started to drive like crazy and held the steering wheel, pressing against it, and started to race down the street," Mizrahi told reporters at the scene.
An off-duty soldier joined Mizrahi aboard the rumbling vehicle. The soldier fired first, but the driver kept going.
Video of the incident showed the two men struggling with the driver, and witnesses then heard several loud bangs as shots rang out.
"I ran up the stairs [of the vehicle] and, when he was still driving like crazy and trying to harm civilians, I fired at him twice more and, that's it, he was liquidated," Mizrahi told reporters.
President Bush telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express his condolences for the Israeli deaths.
ABC's Matthew Jaffe and the Associated Press contributed to this report