Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 8 Jun 2022
ONE PERSON WAS killed and at least a dozen others injured when a man drove a car into a crowd, including teenagers, at a busy shopping district in central Berlin today, police said.
The driver was briefly detained by passers-by before being handed over to police after the car smashed through a shop front, according to police spokesman Thilo Cablitz.
It was not clear whether the crash was intentional.
The driver, a 29-year-old German-Armenian man, is being questioned, police told AFP.
“There are seriously injured people among the more than a dozen injured,” said Cablitz.
Eight people had been taken to hospital and five were in a life-threatening condition, said Adrian Wenzel, a spokesman for the fire service.
The German government is “very concerned and shocked” by the “terrible incident in Berlin”, said a spokeswoman, adding that their thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.
The incident happened at around 10.30 am (8.30 GMT) just across from Breitscheidplatz, where an Islamic State group sympathiser ploughed a truck through a Christmas market in 2016, killing 12.
The silver Renault Clio with a Berlin licence plate first mounted the sidewalk on the corner of Tauentzienstrasse and Rankestrasse, hitting a group of mostly teenagers, before returning to the road.
It then rammed into the shop front on Marburger Strasse about 150 – 200 metres away.
‘Happened so fast’
Frank Vittchen, a witness at the scene, told AFP he was sitting at a fountain nearby when he “heard a big crash and then also saw a person fly through the air”.
The vehicle drove “at high speed onto the pavement and didn’t brake”, he said, with its windows shattering from the impact.
“It all happened so fast,” he said.
Another witness who declined to be named told AFP the people hit by the car included a group of 15-16-year-olds, and that two teachers were among those injured.
British-American actor John Barrowman posted a series of videos on Twitter from the scene. “I heard the bang and the crash when we were in a store and then we came out and we just saw the carnage,” he said.
Germany has been on high alert for car ramming attacks since the deadly 2016 Christmas market assault, with most carried out by people who were found to have psychological issues.
In December 2020, a German man ploughed his car through a pedestrian shopping street in the southwestern city of Trier, killing four adults and a baby.
Earlier the same year, a German man rammed his car through a carnival procession in the central town of Volkmarsen, injuring dozens of bystanders, including children. He was sentenced to life in jail last year.
In January 2019, another German man injured eight people when he drove into crowds on New Year’s Eve in the western cities of Bottrop and Essen. He was later taken into psychiatric care.
In April 2018, a German crashed his van into people seated outside a restaurant in the city of Muenster, killing five before shooting himself dead. Investigators later said he had mental health problems.
During the football World Cup in Germany in 2006, a German man rammed his car into crowds gathered to watch a match at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, injuring some 20 people. The driver was later committed to a psychiatric hospital.
If this was intentional we should do background checks for vehicle ownership, or raise the minimum age to 21, or ban high-capacity engines. SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE!
@james s: none of which will stop someone doing this, if it was indeed intentional. But your right something definitely has to be done
@james s: we have driver licensing; we take licenses off bad drivers; we impound the cars of repeat offenders; and if they kill people, we put them in actual prison (instead of on Faux News)
@Felicity Rawson: you’re bring trolled
@james s: I think most people would be satisfied if guns were as tightly regulated as cars. Insurance, licensing, lessons, passing a test, ongoing checks, higher insurance for more powerful guns etc. Oh and preventing you from using a gun if you’re blind. In many USA states you can still own and use a gun if you’re legally blind.
@Paul Lee: Looks to me she sees what the troll is insinuating and replying to the point they’re attempting to make with their trolling. Christ, imagine trolling in 2022
@Megan Elizabeth FW: Yep!
@james s: what a tool. To drive a car you need a license, background check, medical check, insurance ect …
@james s: what a turnip you are. If this was intention then dozens would likely be dead if the weapon was an AR-15 rather than a car.
@james s: the only answer to a bad guy with a car is a good guy with a car!
@Gearóid MacEachaidh: you do know you’re advocating for blind people not to be able to defend themselves in the dark.
People were complaining that we made it easier for Ukrainians to get refuge than it was for Syrians. As far as I’m aware, Ukrainians don’t carry out any terrorist attacks against people just because they don’t like what they wear or what they watch.
@John Fagan: How many Syrians carried out terrorist attacks in Ireland?
@John Fagan: Since 2015, after the bulk of the 1 million Syrian refugees arrived in Europe, there were 0 attacks in Ireland and 2 in Europe carried out by Syrian refugees.
They were the 2016 Ansbach bombing by Mohammad Daleel from Aleppo Syria and 2020 Dresden knife attack by Abdullah al-H.. Neither attack causes any deaths.
The majority of the 70 terrorist attacks were carried out by European citizens / asylum seekers from North Africa, mostly Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Enough is enough. We can’t allow anymore innocent people get killed by assault vehicles like this. There needs to be more background check on car owners and we need to stand up to the car lobbyists who sit by idly while people are killed everyday by these vehicles of war.
@Vestigial: what a sad little life you lead
@Vestigial: oh look another turnip commenting pro gun non-arguments! Instead of writing nonsensical rubb!sh why don’t you consider the damage someone could do with an AR-15 instead of a car. I bet you’re one of those people who brainwashed themselves into the far right on YouTube aren’t you?
@Vestigial: moron
@Bananaquit: Just for actual factual context which doesn’t rely on a political agenda or allegations of brainwashing by youtube.
The horrendous and tragic mass shootings in both Uvalde and Buffalo in which the perpetrators used AR 15 rifles, resulted in 21 and 10 deaths respectively, but in Nice France in 2016 the perpetrator used a 19 tonne truck…
“On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people and the injury of 458 others.”
So obviously the intent, desire or ability of perpetrators, that are motivated to kill defenceless people using any available means, is not inhibited by not having access to any type of firearm.
@Vestigial: do u live in America? If not, ur a l0ser makin US gun control commentary as if it’s any part of ur life. If u do live in America then ur a l0ser commenting on articles in Irish media about US stuff the article isn’t even about.
Are ya just mad desperate to be American or something? Bang bang the cowboys in the movies mammy, I wanna be a cowboy bang bang. Whatever the case, ur a sad act.
@David Van-Standen: when was the last time someone killed a class full of school kids by driving a truck into the class? How many truck mass killings will there be by this time next week using a truck? How many mass shootings have there been already in the USA since the Texas shootings? You’re comparing apples with oranges for an argument that anti gun control nuts usually make. Criminals will always find ways to commit crimes, yes. But school shootings happen excuslivly by kids and young men with no criminal background and easy access to guns or able to own them themselves. The argument that nothing should be done about school shootings because a terrorist can use a truck is daft on the face of it.
@Gearóid MacEachaidh: I was going to respond to him myself but you put it better.
@Vestigial: your more or less making a joke about this.
@Vestigial: I abhor your right to have an opinion. I’m better than you. I’m a leftist.
@Gearóid MacEachaidh: I personally believe that background checks and safety training should be a requirement for firearm ownership, but when anti gun advocates claim, the problem is access to guns or types of guns, they act as if availability of guns is a new thing in the USA.
There have always been guns in the USA and even easier access than exists today, yet in the 1940′s there were 3 mass shootings, 4 in the 50′s , 7 in the 60′s, 19 in the 70′s, 22 in the 80′s, 32 in the 90′s, 44 in the 2000′s and 142 from 2010 until today, so obviously there is more involved than access to firearms.
An argument has been made over the years and with validity in my opinion, that the saturation media coverage of mass shootings since the 1970′s has contributed to the problem, because due to the media spotlight, the infamous shooters have become household names, which appeals to mentally ill people looking to gain recognition as part of their psychosis.
Obviously the news of a mass shooting has to be reported, but there is a difference between reporting the horrendous event taking place and turning it into a 24/7 media circus that turns the shooters into an international celebrity, albeit an infamous one.
Of course it is not an accident. Or random. Or (legally speaking) insanity. It’s the new ‘Bend over backwards no matter what they do’ policy that Euope has adapted in the wake of woke.
@Cindy Brolin: Once again the manufactured strawman of “woke” tediously appears in the comments section.
Personally I’m waiting for the Berlin police statement.
And BTW Armenia has been Christian since the 1st century
have your say