Friday, June 28, 2019

Acting via his lawyers, Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to seven counts of negligent homicide in New Hampshire, United States. Zhukovskyy waived arraignment and did not physically appear in court. According to police and county officials, Zhukovskyy was driving a pickup truck “erratically and across the double-yellow center line” on U.S. Route 2 in Randolph, New Hampshire on the night of June 21 and struck a group of motorcycles, killing seven riders and injuring three more.

Travis Hood, who witnessed the collision, said “I don’t really don’t know what he was doing […] The truck pretty much was like in the middle of the yellow line, and the guy pretty much cleaned out the whole — the bikes were riding side-by-side, and the guy cleaned out pretty much every bike that was there besides one of them.”

Zhukovskyy was arrested Monday at his home in the neighboring state of Massachusetts and waived extradition to New Hampshire.

According to police in Baytown, Texas, Zhukovskyy has been involved in traffic collisions before. Reportedly, he struck a guard rail on June 3 and flipped the Mack truck he had been driving on its side. According to investigators, Zhukovskyy said he had over-corrected after being cut off by another driver, and he was not cited for the incident. The Associated Press reports Zhukovskyy has also been stopped for suspicion of driving while inebriated.

The court determined Zhukovskyy’s driving history rendered him a danger to himself or to the public. For this reason, he was not granted bail. His trial has been scheduled for November.