NEW YORK (AP) — A teenager thrown to the ground Wednesday when a Central Park carriage horse bolted away from its driver has died, according to police.
The 18-year-old was riding in the horse-drawn carriage with three other passengers when the accident happened just before 3 p.m., according to the New York Police Department. At least two passengers were sent flying out of the careening cab.
The teenager was initially hospitalized in critical condition. The other passengers refused medical treatment.
A representative for the Transport Workers Union, which represents carriage industry employees, said the driver had dismounted to take a photograph of his passengers, which they are not supposed to do.
The horse had been in the park for only six weeks, according to Alexander Kemp, the administrative vice president of the union's local chapter. He said he wants a full investigation.
“Safety in the park has been a growing concern among many, and improvements are needed to be made with respect to all vehicles, including e-bicycles, delivery vehicles, pedicabs, and horse-drawn carriages," he said in a statement.
Video showed the horse sprinting through the park as two people appeared to jump from the four-wheeled carriage. A second video shows the cab toppling over after clipping the wheels of another carriage on the park's busy loop.
It's a fraught moment for Central Park's 150-year-old horse-drawn carriage industry. The industry has long been seen as a quaint attraction that offers tourists a romantic remnant of a bygone New York, while providing hundreds of jobs to drivers, along with many farm and racing horses. But they are now facing the growing threat of a ban from opponents who say the rides are both inhumane to horses and a danger to city residents.
Wednesday's event follows several recent horse-related problems in the park, including the fatal collapse of a horse last week.
The Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit which operates the park and came out last summer in support of banning horse-drawn carriages, said the back-to-back events should bring an end to the industry.
“A young man came to enjoy our park and lost his life,” the group said in a statement. “That is not an acceptable cost of an antiquated industry operating in the middle of one of the most heavily used public spaces in America.”
Central Park is nearly 850 acres and attracts millions of people every year.
FILE - Horses and carriages wait for customers on Oct. 23, 2013, near Central Park in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish authorities have arrested a man suspected of fatally shooting in broad daylight a Russian activist critical of President Vladimir Putin and believe there is a likely link to a foreign intelligence service, top officials said Thursday.
The killing is the latest act which Polish authorities believe could be part of a campaign of Russian sabotage in NATO nations aimed at sowing fear and demoralizing Ukraine's closest allies.
The suspect in Monday's killing in Poland is a 36-year-old man who carried a passport belonging to the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said at a news conference in Warsaw.
Kierwiński said the man is suspected of links to organized crime and is being linked by police to other crimes committed in Poland, including those dating to 2022.
Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was killed near his home in the eastern Polish city of Biala Podlaska, a city near the border with Belarus. Polish police say the victim was 44 years old.
Prosecutors said the perpetrator fired two shots at him, then shot him three more times at close range before fleeing. Kuzovkov died at the scene of gunshot wounds to the head, chest and back.
“We consider it possible that foreign intelligence services may have been involved,” said Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s security services minister, who spoke at the press conference alongside the interior minister.
“Foreign services sometimes hire criminals to carry out operations. We have seen this in previous years. While those cases did not involve murder, criminals were hired to conduct assaults in other countries. We are therefore taking this possibility very seriously,” Siemoniak said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday that the killing has the hallmarks of a political assassination.
“Everything points to this being a political murder,” Tusk said, adding: "if that was the case — if it was ordered by Russia — then it is an extremely serious matter internationally. It would constitute state terrorism.”
Polish investigators initially detained two Belarusian citizens but released them later, saying they had no evidence that they were directly involved in the killing.
Polish prosecutors said the Russian activist used his art to express criticism of Russian authorities.
He painted unflattering portraits of Putin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and other high-ranking Russian officials. One depicts Putin being cradled in the arms of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
On Sunday, he posted a video on his YouTube channel showing him in Berlin putting a Russian flag in a trash can on June 12, the holiday marking Russia’s sovereignty.
Since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been accused of trying to assassinate its opponents abroad, including targeting exiled activists in France and Lithuania.
Officials in Germany have also broken up plots targeting the head of a German weapons supplier to Ukraine and a Ukrainian military official.
Polish authorities arrested a man in 2024 in what they said was a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That same year, a Russian helicopter pilot who defected was killed in Spain, with Russian operatives as the prime suspects.
A man identified by Polish media as Robert Kuzovkov and by prosecutors as Robert K., in accordance with Polish privacy law, who they said was an artist who used the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, poses for a photo with one of his paintings near the Russian Embassy in Berlin, Germany, on Friday, June 12, 2026, four days before Polish authorities said he was shot and killed in Biala Podlaska, Poland. (Vasily Krestyaninov/SOTA via AP)
