A man driving an SUV ploughed into a group of six migrant workers outside a Walmart in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on Sunday in an “intentional assault”, the police said.

The attack took place just after 1:15pm (local time), when the man, who was behind the wheel of a midsize black SUV with a luggage rack, steered towards the group, according to a statement released on Sunday evening by the Lincolnton Police Department. The episode was caught on video, and the department was asking the public for help in identifying the vehicle or the driver.

All six of the workers were transported to Atrium Health Lincoln with “various injuries” that were not life-threatening, the police said.

“None is in critical condition,” Major Brian R. Greene of the Lincolnton Police Department said by telephone. The police have reviewed the footage, he added, which appears to show the driver cutting over a median and into a grassy area between parking spaces, where the migrants were standing.

They were outside the Walmart in northeast Lincolnton, a city of less than 12,000 people about 48km northwest of Charlotte.

The police interviewed all the migrants, Major Greene said, and they had no apparent connection with the driver of the vehicle. “We’re trying to locate the individual that did this,” he added. “Right now, we don’t have a lot.” The attack follows a deadly crash in May in which the driver of a Range Rover barrelled into a crowd of migrants in Brownsville, Texas, killing eight.

New York Times News Service