Driver Arrested After Car Driven Into Crowd in German City Killing at Least Two

A man is under arrest and several people are seriously injured, including at least one possibly killed, after a black car was driven into a crowd of people in a German city on Monday morning.

Several people are injured, some seriously, and at least one person was laid under a bloodied sheet — presumed deceased — in the city of Mannheim on the Rhine in Baden-Württemberg  on Monday morning. Police have ordered the public to keep away from the area, a large deployment of emergency services is underway and a helicopter was landed in a square near the incident in the city centre.

Mannheim has a mirror city on the opposite bank of the Rhine — Ludwigshafen in Rhineland-Palatinate — and a local newspaper of this twin community Die Rheinpfalz reports eyewitnesses who spoke of a “rampage” by the alleged driver and of at least one fatality. The Stuttgarter Zeitung states: “debris was visible at the scene and at least one person was lying covered under a tarpaulin”.

Update 1630 — Death toll rises

German media now states that two people are known to have been killed, a man and a woman, in the apparent attack against pedestrians in Mannheim on Monday. Newspaper Die Welt reveals new details on the attacker, that is is a 40-year-old German citizen and that he attempted to shoot himself in the mouth with what is described as a blank firing pistol as police attempted to arrest him. The paper further says the owner of the Ford car used in the rampage had previously been known to the authorities for involvement in ‘right wing extremism’, although it also emphasises there is no information on whether it was he behind the wheel or someone else.

If today’s deaths were caused by an attack, it would be the second such act in the city of Mannheim in a year. As reported at the time, an Afghan migrant went on a stabbing rampage at a political event held by the anti-mass migration AfD party in the city. Police had been monitoring the event and were able to respond very quickly, but tragically one of those officers misjudged what was happening and rushed to arrest one of the German victims, not the migrant perpetrator.

This mistake gave the Afghan an opportunity, and he stabbed that officer in the neck as he attempted to wrestle one of the stabbing victims to the ground. The police officer later died.

Update 1330 — Police confirm one killed

Local police have now held a press conference, with newspaper Die Rheinpfalz noting officers “confirm rampage” and that one person has died. No further information has been made public yet, but Bild states police sources who say the death toll has actually risen to two, and that 25 are injured. Frankfurter Runschau states University Hospital Mannheim has been activated for a “mass event” with trauma teams for adults and children stood up.

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National newspaper Bild reports their sources who state a black SUV was driven into a crowd of people “at high speed” and that the driver was subsequently arrested.

Police have yet to make any comment on the cause of this incident or whether there is any known motive. Nevertheless, the driving of a vehicle at high speeds into crowds is something that has become all too familiar in German cities in the past decade, and just in recent weeks there have been other such incidents.

As previously reported, a little before Christmas a Saudi Arabian ‘doctor’ ploughed through crowds at a Christmas Market in the Cathedral Square, Magdeburg. Five were killed, including a child, and hundreds injured.

Then in February, two people were killed and dozens injured when an Afghan migrant drove a car into a crowd in Munich. Again, one of those killed was a young child. In both attacks, the perpetrators were what might be called model migrants, men who had superficially integrated into society and who had jobs, a difficult new development for intensely pro-mass-migration European governments, coming from a situation where hitherto those drawn to violent extremism had tended to be loners, criminals, and failed asylum seekers on the fringes of society.

This story is developing, more follows