He was said to be in critical but stable condition after
Officer Ryan Nash
of the New York Police Department shot him in the abdomen following the Halloween assault. But he was reportedly celebrating the deadly attack, rejoicing in his room at Bellevue Hospital, sources told the
New York Daily News
Wednesday.
"He's talking. He's laughing. He's very happy with what he did," said a source who was briefed by a hospital staffer on the floor. "He feels accomplished." A second source said Saipov, in his interviews with investigators, showed "no remorse" and was "glad that he did what he set out to do."
The driver who sped down a crowded bike path in New York City on Tuesday, killing eight people, had been planning the attack for weeks and appeared to have connections to people who were the subjects of terrorism investigations, police officials said on Wednesday, reports the
New York Times
.
As counterterrorism investigators drilled into whether the attacker had meaningful ties to terrorist organizations, it also became clear that some of those close to the attacker had feared for years that he was heading down the path of extremism.
Saipov rented a pickup truck from a Home Depot in New Jersey at 2:06 p.m. on Tuesday before crossing into Manhattan on the George Washington Bridge, the police said in the first public timeline provided by authorities. At 3:04 p.m., a camera caught him driving onto a bike path alongside the Hudson River, where the police said he appeared to be targeting pedestrians and cyclists as he mowed people down.