A car has been driven into a crowd of people in the western German city of Mannheim, causing casualties, local media report, and the city is in lockdown as police tell residents to stay at home. The Mail has more.
A black car drove at high speed into people, travelling from the centrally located Paradeplatz square towards the city’s landmark water tower, the Mannheim24 news website reported, adding that several people were severely injured.
At least one person was killed during the incident, DW reported this afternoon, citing local media.
One person was also seen lying under a tarpaulin on site, according to a reporter for the Deutsche Presse-Agentur agency. It was unclear whether he or she had been injured or killed.
Several people were seen lying on the ground in the aftermath, with two people apparently being resuscitated, an eye witness told Reuters.
Another witness, sitting at a restaurant on Paradeplatz at the time, told Welt that “all hell broke loose”. He said he did not see the crash, but “people running away in panic”.
The incident occurred as crowds gathered in cities across regions including Germany’s Rhineland for parades to mark the carnival season.
Police were on high alert for this year’s carnival parades after social media accounts connected to ISIS called for attacks on the events in Cologne and Nuremberg. …
Security has been a key concern in Germany following a string of violent attacks in recent weeks, including deadly car rammings in Magdeburg in December and in Munich last month, as well as a stabbing in Mannheim in May 2024.
The Telegraph reports that the city is in lockdown as a “major police operation” is underway and police ask the public to “keep inside their homes”:
A major police operation is taking place in the western German city of Mannheim amid reports of a suspected car ramming.
A car reportedly drove into a parade ground and hit a group of people, according to witnesses.
There are reports of multiple casualties.
Local police said a large-scale police operation was under way in the city centre, without giving further details.
“Due to the police deployment, citizens are asked to avoid Mannheim city centre and to take a wide detour,” Mannheim police said in a statement. …
One seller at the market told the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper: “It is terrible here, nobody knows what happened, you only see injured people and the dead, and you don’t know what to do.”
Reports of fatalities have not been confirmed by authorities.
Police in the Mannheim have asked the public to stay away from the downtown area and keep inside their homes.
Update: More details have emerged about the attack. The Telegraph reports:
Two people were killed and several others seriously injured when a motorist rammed a car into a crowd of people in the German city of Mannheim on Monday.
A 40-year-old German citizen, who reportedly has mental health issues, was arrested by police. The suspect was taken to hospital, where he was receiving treatment on Monday evening.
CCTV footage of the suspected attack showed a black Ford driving at high speed towards Paradeplatz, a pedestrianised square in Mannheim’s city centre.
Thomas Strobl, the Interior Minister of Baden-Wurttemberg state, confirmed on Monday that “two people died from their injuries and several others are seriously injured.”
Officials at Mannheim’s University Hospital said two adults and a child were receiving “acute medical care” after they were struck by the vehicle.
The driver’s motive was unclear, though it comes after a string of terrorist incidents in Germany involving knife and car-ramming attacks in crowded areas.
While the suspect arrested in Mannheim was a German citizen, similar recent attacks in the cities of Magdeburg and Munich are alleged to have been committed by refugees or rejected asylum seekers.
Eugyppius has some more details gathered from leaks and social media, some of which he warns may be unreliable:
Today at 12:15pm, in Mannheim, a 40 year-old German man named Alexander S. drove his black Ford Fiesta through a crowd gathered on the Planken, a pedestrian boulevard. His target was apparently the annual Fasnachtsmarkt, a Carnival market with food carts and rides for children. He killed two people, one of them a woman and another a 50 year-old man. Among the five seriously injured are several children, two of whom witnesses say lost their legs.
Alexander S. fled the scene in his Fiesta, and a taxi driver (Afzal M.) pursued him to the Spatzenbrücke, which leads across a Neckar canal. There Alexander S. disembarked from his badly damaged car and fired a gas pistol at his pursuer before fleeing on foot. Police arrested Alexander S. near the Mannheim harbour half an hour later. Before they could take him into custody, he shot himself in the mouth with a blank round. He is presently in hospital in critical condition. Police sources report to media that he is understood to suffer from psychological problems.
I followed this story all day, and I regret that I have no additional information to offer. Authorities have released almost no details, and most of what I provide here is based on anonymous leaks from police sources; some of it may be unreliable. I at least wanted to confirm that, contrary to many social media rumours and the all-too-familiar nature of today’s events, what happened in Mannheim was neither an act of Islamist terrorism nor another instance of migrant violence.
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