The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a federal hate crime probe into a suspect who allegedly plowed his car into a crowd of pedestrians in Sunnyvale, Northern California, last week, local media reported Sunday.
"The FBI San Francisco Field Office has opened a federal hate crime investigation into the incident that occurred in Sunnyvale on April 23, 2019," which wounded eight people, The Mercury News quoted an FBI statement as saying.
Sunnyvale police authorities said they have gathered new evidence indicating the suspect intentionally targeted the victims who he believed were Muslims.
The car driver, Isaiah Joel Peoples, who is a 34-year-old Army veteran living in Sunnyvale, a city in Santa Clara County, California, was targeting a family believed to be South Asian, purely based on their appearance, said the police.
The FBI said the Sunnyvale case is an ongoing investigation and no further comment would be available at the moment.
Among the victims wounded in the rampage included a 13-year-old daughter of the family member, who was the most severely hurt and is now fighting a coma for her life, according to the police.
Peoples was now charged with eight counts of attempted murder -- four of them coming with enhancements for causing great bodily injury. He could face life in prison if convicted, according to the media report.
