The Berlin Senator for the Interior, Iris Spranger, described the death drive of a 29-year-old in the capital today as an “amoktat”. “According to the latest information, today’s events in Tauentzienstrasse are an amok act by a mentally handicapped person,” Spranger explained on Twitter in the evening. A woman was killed in the incident and 14 others were injured, some seriously.
A driver hit a group of people near the Berlin Memorial Church and killed a teacher from Hesse. According to the current state of knowledge of the police, 14 people were injured in addition to the killed teacher.
A police spokeswoman said that the injured were exclusively people from the group of students with whom the teacher from Hesse had been traveling in Berlin.
Background not yet clear
Five or six people were fatally injured, three others seriously. Because of the dynamic situation, the information still fluctuated, it said. The class consisted of tenth graders from Bad Arolsen. The Hessian state government had previously announced that a teacher had been seriously injured.
The group was on a school trip in the capital. The background was not yet clear, the sadness and sympathy from all over Germany was enormous. According to dpa information from police circles, the suspect should be mentally disturbed. The President of the Police, Barbara Slowik, emphasized the openness of the investigation.
found posters
In the car, which was driven by a 29-year-old German-Armenian living in Berlin, not only documents but also posters with inscriptions were found. “There is no real letter of confession,” Interior Senator Spranger said before her tweet. She spoke of “posters” that would contain statements about Turkey. The exact motivation of the driver must be examined, the statements would be checked carefully.
Slowik spoke of a “suspect” who is now in the hospital. At the moment there is no relevant knowledge of a political motivation. There was no mention of a random accident in the statements. The students from Hesse would be psychologically cared for, Spranger had said.