The death toll in the attack with a car in the German city of Trier has risen to five. The victims fell in the city center this afternoon when a German with an SUV ran into pedestrians in a shopping area.
At a press conference early in the evening, authorities announced that four of the fatalities come from Trier: two women aged 25 and 73, a man aged 45 and a baby aged nine months. The baby’s mother is injured in the hospital. Shortly after the press conference, police tweeted that one was dead.
Mayor Wolfram Leibe spoke of the darkest day for the city of Trier since the Second World War.
Fifteen people were injured, four of whom were in bad shape. Presumably one of them is the dead reported later. Five others are also seriously injured. Six people have minor injuries.
According to the Public Prosecution Service, there are no indications of a religious or politically motivated act. There are no other suspects. The police assume that the perpetrator acted alone and received no help.
The perpetrator is a 51-year-old man from Trier. He drove through the city center in a Land Rover at high speed at around 1:45 pm, ramming people hundreds of meters away. Eyewitnesses saw people flying through the air. According to the authorities, he acted with purpose. He drove in a zigzag line to make as many victims as possible.
Four minutes after the start, the police managed to arrest the perpetrator when his car came to a stop. He resisted his arrest.
The man spent the last days in his car. He does not seem to have had a permanent place of residence and residence, and as far as is known he had no relatives, said a spokesperson for the OM.
These are images taken during the arrest:
The perpetrator is accused, among other things, of quadruple murder, where he used his car as a murder weapon. The authorities are still in the dark about the motive. He has not made any statements yet. The man had no criminal record.
The OM does not rule out “a psychiatric background” for his act. The perpetrator has recently been treated.
Before his act, the suspect had “drunk not insignificant amounts of alcohol”. He had a blood alcohol level of 1.4.
German media say it is Bernd W., who is described as an eccentric loner.
