Berlin – A man zig-zagged an SUV through a pedestrian zone in the southwestern German city of Trier on Tuesday, killing five people, including a 9-month-old baby, and injuring more than a dozen, officials said. The driver, identified as a 51-year-old German man born in Trier, was arrested at the scene and the vehicle was impounded, Trier police said.
The suspect, whose name was not released under German privacy law, had no fixed address and had been living in a Land Rover in recent days when a friend gave him a loan that was attacked, prosecutor Peter Fritzen said. Were leading the investigation.
He was being questioned by police and had to undergo a psychiatric examination, Fritzen said, adding that a doctor had recently reached a preliminary conclusion that the man may be suffering from a mental illness.
“We have no indication that there was any kind of terrorist, political or religious motive that could play a role,” he told reporters.
Sebastian Smitz, lokalo.de / ap
The suspect also drank a small amount of alcohol before the incident and it was above the legal limit.
Talking about the horrific scene, Mayor Wolfram Libby, who was brought to tears during the day, said it was difficult to capture what had happened. “I don’t understand how anyone comes up with the idea of driving to kill people with an SUV in the middle of the city,” he said. “Kill people – a baby, a 9-month-old woman of 72 months; what did these people do? They just wanted to go to town, went shopping, and now they’re dead.”
Four people were still in critical condition at the hospital and five others sustained serious injuries, while six others sustained less serious injuries, state Home Minister Roger Levante said. Police later said one of the injured died but did not give further details.
The others killed were identified as a 25-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man from Tire; The mother of the child was also among those admitted to the hospital. The biggest victim was 73 years old, police said. “This incident has shaken all of Germany,” Levantez said.
Police were called just before 2 p.m., with reports of an attack. Levantez praised the security forces for their response, saying they had found the car, which was parked on the side of the street, and captured the suspect within four minutes of the first call.
The arrest of the driver, who was alone in the car, was resisted, but police suppressed it, officials said.
Shimulgen / Ritter there
In a video posted by local media for the purpose of the arrest, a man could be seen lying on the sidewalk next to a car with a police tire license plate. The authenticity of the video was not immediately verified and was taken down immediately after police requested not to share photos and videos of the scene.
Footage from the scene showed people outside the shop apparently helping someone on the ground lying in the debris.
Rhineland-Palatinate state Governor Malu Dreyer, who hails from Trier, called the attack a heinous act.
“It was a really, really terrible day for my hometown,” Dreyer told reporters after visiting the scene.
Stephen Seibert, a spokeswoman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, tweeted that the incident was shocking.
“Our thoughts are with the relatives of those killed and with a number of injured people and with everyone currently on their duty,” he said.
Terry is about 120 miles west of Frankfurt, near the Luxembourg border. The city of about 110,000 people for its Roman gate, Porta Nigra, which is close to the scene and is known as the birthplace of Karl Marx.
.
