Berlin crash – latest: Teacher killed after car ploughs into Kurfuerstendamm crowd

The suspected driver of the vehicle has been detained, Berlin police confirmed

Police cordon off Kurfuerstendamm street in Berlin after car crash

Berlin officials have confirmed a teacher was killed after a car drove into pedestrians in a central shopping district in the German capital.

Police spokesman Martin Dams said the suspected driver of the vehicle, a 29-year-old man of dual German-Armenian citizenship, was detained by pedestrians before he was arrested by police in the incident that left at least a dozen people injured.

Posters “expressing views about Turkey” - which has troubled relations with Armenia - were found in the car that drove in the crowd, Berlin’s top security official Iris Spranger said. However, an interior ministry spokesperson said “it is too early to speculate about the background (of the incident).”

Germany’s Bild news cited an investigator saying: “This was by no means an accident - someone on the rampage, an ice-cold killer” in addition to reports that the driver of the Renault Clio car was known to police.

American actor John Barrowman was caught up in the incident he described as “horrific.”

Key Points

• One dead and 30 injured after driver ploughs into crown on Kurfuerstendamm shopping boulevard
• Placard relating to Turkey found in car that drove into Kurfuerstendamm crowd
• Actor John Barrowman caught in ‘horrific’ incident
• Five people with ‘life threatening’ injuries, fire services say
• Suspected driver detained by pedestrians before arrest

[8 June 2022 15:37 · Thomas Kingsley]

Placards ‘relating to Turkey’ discovered in the car that drove into crowd in Berlin

Placards relating to Turkey were discovered in the car of a man who allegedly drove his car into a group of school children in central Berlin on Wednesday, killing their teacher, a local politician said.

The alleged driver is a 29-year-old German-Armenian man of dual citizenship.

Armenia and Turkey have historically hostile relations and the two nations which share a border currently have no diplomatic ties. In 1993, when Turkey backed Azerbaijan in its majority Muslim ally's first war with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Turkey-Armenia border remained sealed ever since, badly hurting trade, which has been largely limited to occasional charter flights

“There are said to have been placards inside but there was no letter of confession,” said the city's state interior minister, Iris Spranger, refuting an earlier media report from Germany’s Bild daily.

[8 June 2022 16:00 · Thomas Kingsley]

ICYMI: John Barrowman shares video from scene of Berlin crash

[8 June 2022 16:20 · Thomas Kingsley]

Berlin crime scene expanded, police say

The crime scene near Kurfuerstendamm shopping boulevard where a driver ploughed into pedestrians has been expanded, Berlin police has said.

“For further crime scene work, especially to the vehicle, the emergency services have temporarily expanded the restricted area,” Berlin police wrote Twitter.

The force added that parts of the Berlin subway were suspended and parts of the Europa-center shopping complex were cleared.

[8 June 2022 17:00 · Thomas Kingsley]

‘Get by a tree’ John Barrowman told as Berlin crash unfolded

Actor John Barrowman recalled the moment a witness told him to get by a tree as the Berlin crash unfolded.

[8 June 2022 17:30 · Thomas Kingsley]

Woman killed in Berlin crash was a teacher, Berlin official confirms

Berlin's top security official, Iris Spranger, confirmed that the woman killed was a teacher on a school trip with students from the central German state of Hesse.

Six people sustained life-threatening injuries and another three were seriously injured, fire service spokesman Adrian Wentzel. Police said more than a dozen people were injured.

The driver was apparently detained by passers-by and then arrested swiftly by a police officer who was near the scene, Cablitz said. He said police are trying to determine whether the man deliberately drove into pedestrians or whether it was an accident, possibly caused by a medical emergency.

[8 June 2022 18:00 · Thomas Kingsley]

Berlin official Iris Spranger said posters were found in the man’s car “in which he expressed views about Turkey.”

Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey said she was "deeply shocked" by the incident and that authorities were keeping an open mind about possible motives.

Giffey said the crash brought "terrible memories" of a truck attack more than five years at the nearby Breitscheidplatz square. An Islamic extremist drove into a Christmas market in 2016, resulting in 13 deaths.

In a 2019 incident in central Berlin, an SUV plowed into a group of pedestrians, killing four people. The driver had suffered an epileptic seizure and veered onto the sidewalk.