with gas canisters drove towards a pedestrian crossing, collided with a rideshare vehicle killing the passengers inside. avery also died later at the hospital. investigators are still combing through evidence recovered from his vehicle, but nothing thus far have been recovered to provide any additional insight into why this occurred. reporter: what investigators do know is that every traveled in his own car from syracuse to rochester on or around december 27th and checked into a nearby hotel. on december 29th, police say that every picked up a rental car, and on december 30th, images like this one show that he was alone when he bought gas canisters and filled them. it s a very highly organized structured plan of attack by this person for whatever reason. the only question for investigators at this point is why did he do it? and was anyone else involved? reporter: to help answer those questions, authorities with a joint terrorism task force and fbi executing search
the suspect in the large rented suv also dying in his vehicle. firefighters found at least a dozen gas can sterps inside that suv. and abc s senior investigative correspondent aaron katersky in rochester tonight. reporter: tonight, police here in rochester believe this fiery crash, less than an hour into 2024, was no accident. they identified this man, 35-year-old michael avery, as the driver of a large suv filled with gas cans that barreled into a crowd of people leaving a concert, and they said he did it on purpose. avery sped up, crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic, and appears to have intentionally been driving towards the pedestrian crossing. nine pedestrians were hurt, but many more could have been had the suv not collided with a smaller rideshare vehicle pulling out of the parking lot, killing two passengers. identified tonight as 29-year-old joshua orr and 28-year-old justina hughes. you believe he sped up or sped toward the crosswalk and the pedestrians? yes. you c
in rochester. he rented an suv from a nearby airport car rental place. on the day of the attack, he actually went around to several different locations by himself. you can see that picture right there. he purchased gas canisters and the gasoline. what authorities say happened really just an hour into the new year s day when these concert goers, about 1000 of them, were leaving the venue, authorities say he plowed into that crowd, hitting a rideshare car carrying two people who were killed immediately on impact. with all of those gas can in canisters, there was a huge explosion. a lot of questions still here. we know search warrants have been executed on the hotel room, on the vehicles involved, and nothing is really pointing to a motive here. i want you to hear from what police are saying at this point. although the motive behind the crime remains unknown, the conversations we have had with
this concert on december 31st. he traveled several days before that, rented a hotel room, rented a car, and then, as you guys mentioned, has also been seen in several places buying cans of gasoline and filling them up with gasoline. that is what caused those gasoline cans, a huge explosion at the scene. what authorities say is that they believe he purposely sped up, drove into this crowd of concert goers who were leaving the concert at the kodak center on new year s eve, really only an hour into new year s day, and two people who were in an opposite car in a rideshare were killed in that crash. nine other people were injured as well and one person has critical injuries from the explosion and crash. a lot of questions here as to the motive. that s really what everyone wants answered at this point. there does seem to be some intent here. it s also important to note, according to the mayor, there are a lot of heroes in this incident. i want you to hear what he has
Americans already have enough to worry about when flying. The last thing passengers need is to spend more money to get to the airport. Yet, in many cases, that is precisely what happens when they use popular rideshare services.