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Vehicle Accelerates During Auto Auction; 3 Dead, 9 Injured

BILLERICA, Mass. (AP) — A SUV being shown to prospective buyers at a crowded indoor auto auction suddenly accelerated with a screech of its tires and crashed through a wall Wednesday, killing three people and injuring nine.

The crash occurred at around 10:15 a.m. at LynnWay Auto Auction in Billerica, about 20 miles northwest of Boston.

One man and two women were killed in the crash, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a news conference. Nine people were hurt, including two with life-threatening injuries, she said. The driver wasn't hospitalized, she said.

The 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee was being driven by an auction employee in his 70s down a lane reserved for vehicles so potential buyers could view it when it suddenly accelerated and struck several people, she said. Several hundred people were in the building at the time.

"The preliminary investigation suggests this is a tragic accident," Ryan said.

Massachusetts State Police investigators are working to reconstruct the accident.

Woody Tuttle, an auto auction employee who saw the crash, told WCVB-TV that the building has eight lanes in which vehicles on the auction block line up. People were standing between the lanes when one vehicle suddenly took off, Tuttle said.

"I heard a screeching of tires, and, I believe, a Jeep Cherokee went flying by me," he told the station. "In avoiding the cars, whoever was driving this vehicle hit several people."

The vehicle then went through the wall of the building, Tuttle said.

The driver "avoided the cars, and went on to hit the people who were standing between the cars," Tuttle told WCVB-TV.

Emergency personnel were quick to respond to the scene because four police officers and a firefighter are routinely stationed at the auction site because of the large crowds it draws every Wednesday, Billerica Police Chief Daniel Rosa said. Ambulances from several surrounding towns responded.

Images from TV helicopters showed a vehicle covered in debris. Medics wheeled people out of the building on gurneys.

In 2015, an SUV driven by an elderly man hurtled through an auto auction in the Boston suburb of Framingham, striking other cars, patrons and a cinder block wall and injuring eight people. No charges were filed.

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(© Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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