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The mayor spoke of a riot, the police initially did not give information on the motive of the stopped driver.
The police are on the scene with a large number.
Photo: Caption by Harald (DPA / AP / Keystone)
A silver-gray SUV sped several hundred meters through the pedestrian zone of the West German city of Trier on Tuesday afternoon. According to witnesses, the driver intentionally collided with people and stalls not far from the famous Porta Nigra, a Roman city gate, and left a trail of devastation.
People were spinning through the air
Witnesses reported that people were thrown into the air “Friend of the people of Trier”. Images from the crime scene showed broken chairs, strollers, stalls and people calling for help.
The police forces managed to remove the driver from the pedestrian zone and detain him. The man resisted. Later, the police announced that the author was a 51-year-old German living in the Trier-Saarburg district. He has not yet given any information on his motive. Questioning the driver is quite difficult, a police spokesman said.
According to the “Trierischer Volksfreund”, the man came from Trier. He often got drunk at the local kebab shop. It is not clear if he had psychological problems.
Authorities initially had no evidence of a political background in the incident, as reported by the German Press Agency, based on information from security circles. Therefore, the driver of the car was not classified as a threat. Security authorities refer to individuals as threats if they trust the most politically motivated acts of violence, including terrorist attacks. Interior Minister Roger Lewentz (SPD) said police arrested the driver four minutes after the first warning.
The mayor speaks of a “riot”
Subsequently, the city center of Trier, the oldest city in Germany, was cordoned off. Dozens of emergency vehicles and ambulances blocked the streets and emergency services treated the victims. Two helicopters circled in the sky.
Trier Mayor Wolfram Leibe (SPD) said that Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk shortly after the fact that it was a ruckus. At least two people died and at least 15 others were injured, some seriously. The “Trierische Volksfreund” later reported four deaths, including a small child, and about 30 injuries.
Horror among politicians
The mayor did not say why he was making a fuss. Later, Leibe gave an impromptu press conference. He cried when he described what he had seen on the pedestrian street: “I was walking through the center of the city and it was terrible. There is a girl’s slipper and the girl is dead. “
Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD) expressed her horror at the fatal incident. The day was “a really bad and terrible day for family members,” Dreyer said in Trier. Let your thoughts turn to the injured and seriously injured, and hope and pray that they survive and recover.
The last case was not until February
In Germany, cars have deliberately crashed into crowds several times in the last four years. In February, a 29-year-old German drove his car in a carnival parade in the Hessian town of Volkmarsen target kids. More than 100 people were injured, including more than 20 children. As by chance, no one died. Investigators ruled out a political motive. The perpetrator is silent about his act to this day and apparently hardly works with his lawyer or psychologist.
On New Year’s Eve 2018/19, a right-wing radical drove his car against partiers in the Ruhr area, who he thought were foreigners, and injured a total of 14 of them. The assailant was finally admitted to closed psychiatry. In April 2018, a man in Münster drove a caravan to a street cafe and killed four people. Then he shot himself. The police classified the author as mentally ill and the incident as a prolonged suicide.
In December 2016, an Islamist attacker entered a Berlin Christmas market in a truck. 12 people lost their lives and dozens were injured.
