A man drove a car to a German school group in Berlin’s popular shopping district, killing a teacher and seriously injuring nine others, officials said.
According to police spokesman Tiro Kablitz, at around 10:30 am, the man drove a person on the street corner before returning the car to the road and crashed into a nearby shop window.
Berlin’s Supreme Security Officer, Iris Spranger, said the murdered woman was a school trip teacher with a student from Hessen, central Germany.
Fire Department spokesman Adrian Wenzel told n-tv television that five people were injured and three were seriously injured. Police said more than a dozen people were injured.
According to Kabritz, the driver was detained by a passerby before being arrested by police officers near the scene. He added that police officers were trying to determine if he was deliberately driven into a pedestrian or if it was an accident probably caused by a medical emergency.
Police later tweeted that the driver was a 29-year-old German Armenian who lived in Berlin.
Ms. Spranger said a poster was found in the car of a man who “expressed his views on Turkey.”
There were numerous rescue vehicles and first responders on the scene.
Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffy tweeted that he was “deeply shocked by the incident,” saying authorities were open to possible motives.
Meanwhile, American-British actor John Barrowman, who was at a nearby store with his partner at the time of the crash, described the scene as a “genocide.”
The incident occurred at one end of the Kurfuerstendamm shopping boulevard and next to Breitscheidplatz Square, where militants launched a vehicle attack at the Christmas market in 2016, killing 13 people.
In a 2019 incident in central Berlin, an SUV invaded a group of pedestrians in central Berlin, killing four people. The driver had an epileptic seizure and headed for the pavement.
