One killed, several injured after car drives into Berlin pedestrians
(Adjusts casualty toll, adds info throughout)
Berlin, Jun 8 (EFE).- One person was killed and several others injured after a man drove a car into a crowd of people in a busy shopping area in Berlin on Wednesday.
Berlin police said the man is a 29-year-old German-Armenian resident of the capital city. He has been arrested and was being questioned by authorities.
“The driver is said to have first driven into a group of people and then into a shop window in Tauentzienstrasse. He was held by passers-by and handed over to the emergency services,” police said in a statement on Twitter.
Police said in an earlier statement that an investigation had been opened into the incident and that it was “not yet known whether it was an accident or intentional action.”
A spokesperson for the Berlin fire department told local media that five people had life-threatening injuries and three were in a serious condition.
Several other people sustained light injuries, with initial police reports indicating more than a dozen people were injured.
The incident occurred near Kurfürstendamm Avenue at around 10:30 am local time, Berlin police spokesman Thilo Cablitz told reporters.
The vehicle first drove into the crowd on the pavement and then continued for about 200 meters before crashing into a shop window.
Around 60 fire department personnel and several medical teams were deployed to the area to treat those affected, several of whom were airlifted to hospital.
The incident occurred near Breitscheidplatz, the central square where Tunisian extremist Anis Amri deliberately rammed a stolen truck into a popular Christmas market in December 2016, killing 12 people. EFE
gc-jam/ch-ks/jt
