By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – An 18-wheeler with a loaded flatbed crashed into a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) building on Friday, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen others in what a county judge said defined as a deliberate act.
“This accident was intentional and committed by the suspect who was denied a CDL yesterday,” Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough said in a Facebook (NASDAQ:) post, referring to a commercial driver’s license, or CDL. “He came back today with the intent to do harm.”
Online images showed a tractor with a crushed cab in the parking lot of the DPS building in Brenham, Texas, about 75 miles (120 km) northwest of Houston, with a wall of the brick building destroyed and debris scattered in the ‘area. .
The building houses the offices of the state department which includes the Texas Rangers police force and the motor vehicle agency.
Brenham, with about 18,000 residents, is located in Washington County, which borders Montgomery County. In Texas, the county judge is one of the highest elected officials in each jurisdiction.
The crash resulted in 13 injuries as well as one death, the DPS said at an afternoon news conference.
The driver, identified by DPS as Clenard Parker, 42, was in custody and described as suspicious.
Parker was arrested at the scene by several officers who pulled him from the cab of the truck. He was unharmed, a DPS spokesperson said at the news conference, adding that the truck had been reported stolen.
It was unclear whether Parker had an attorney representing him.
Few other details were available Friday afternoon, but DPS officials said the Texas Rangers were investigating the crash.