Times Square driver says he tried to get mental help

NEW YORK — A man accused of mowing down pedestrians in Times Square, killing a teenage Michigan tourist and injuring 22 others, said he had been trying to get psychiatric help.

In a jailhouse interview on Saturday, Richard Rojas told the New York Post (http://nyp.st/2rDrfDD ) that he recently spoke to a mental health counsellor at a local veteran’s centre but they never got back to him.

“I was trying to get help,” Rojas told the newspaper from Rikers Island. “I wanted to fix my life. I wanted to get a job. Get a girlfriend.”

Rojas, who lived with his mother in the Bronx, drove his car Thursday through Times Square, then made a U-turn and steered his car onto a sidewalk, plowing through helpless tourists for three blocks before crashing into protective barriers, police said.