Halloween in Lower Manhattan did not go as planned.

A 29-year-old man was responsible for screams that seemed just too visceral even for the spooky holiday. The suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, drove a white pick-up truck with ‘Home Depot’ decal into a crowd of runners and cyclists for 20 blocks on one of Lower Manhattan’s most popular pedestrian trails. Known as the West Side Highway bike path, numerous walkers, runners and others travel this path daily.

Occurring just after 3 in the afternoon, the incident lasted just minutes. Onlookers and survivors describe the scene as “horrific.” Not only were pedestrians struck by the vehicle, but Saipov ran into a school bus filled with children and adults.

One young eyewitness Olivia Raykhman described the scene of the mangled bus.

“They were sawing through a school bus window. They broke all of the windows and were trying to pull kids out. There was a man covering a child with a blanket. There was one kid who was stuck,” she said.

The assailant then proceeded to exit his vehicle when the truck came to rest in front of Raykhman’s school. He appeared to expose two handguns and began shooting at cars in the street and yelling indiscernible statements, causing further mayhem. Later, a paintball gun and pellet gun were recovered from the scene.

Adria Menezes, 45, said she saw the suspect firing one of his weapons at cars on the street.

Menezes had just arrived at Public School 89, which shares space with I.S. 289 on Warren Street, at 3:03 PM to pick up the two children she babysits for when she suddenly heard cars crashing on West Street and saw a yellow school bus “drive like crazy.”

Then, roughly 15 feet away from her car she saw a man with dark hair wearing a hat that matches the previous descriptions.

“When I saw the man shooting at all the cars, we threw ourselves to the ground,” Menezes said in Spanish by phone from inside the school, which remained locked down.

Marie Hui was visiting with several friends from Vancouver and she and her friends were sheltered in the 9/11 memorial during the incident.

“We’re from Vancouver,” Hui said, “This doesn’t happen over there.”