Driver rams through crowd in Germany, killing 2 and injuring 10

A vehicle driven into a crowd in Germany has left at least two people dead and 10 injured, according to officials. The suspect has been detained and is believed to have a “mental illness.”

Officers responded at around 12:40 p.m. on Monday to reports of a man who had driven a vehicle into a group of people in the Planken area of ​​Mannheim city center in southwest Germany, according to a statement from Mannheim police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Two people were killed, and five were seriously injured, while five others sustained minor injuries, the statement said. All of the injured were taken to different hospitals, but the extent and severity of their injuries are currently unknown.

The suspect has been identified by local German media as 40-year-old Alexander S. from Ludwigshafen. He fled the scene but was captured by police. WELT reported that he shot himself during his arrest and is in critical condition.

Officials believe there is no political motive behind the attack and that there is currently no evidence “of an extremist or religious background.” Chief Public Prosecutor Romeo Schüssler said at a press conference that there were “concrete indications of a mental illness.”

Mannheim police chief Ulrike Schäfer stated that after the first emergency calls, authorities initially assumed it was a traffic accident. However, it “quite quickly became clear” that it was a deliberate act in which multiple people were intentionally struck, according to WELT. Interior Minister Strobl said the car “raced” through the pedestrian zone “at very high speed.”

Monday’s deliberate car-ramming follows similar incidents in Germany in a short span of time. In mid-December, suspect Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen deliberately drove an SUV into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six and injuring nearly 300. The attack is still under investigation, with authorities believing the suspect is an “Islamophobe” who may have been influenced by discontent with Germany’s treatment of Saudi refugees.

Less than a month later, in mid-February, a Mini Cooper was driven into protesters at a demonstration in Munich, killing two people—an Algerian-born woman and her two-year-old daughter—and injuring nearly 40. The suspect, 24-year-old Afghan national Farhad Noori, was arrested shortly after the attack.