dpa
Two manhole covers are thrown off a motorway bridge in Germany, one smashes through the windshield of a car and injures two people. The police quickly apprehend a suspect.
It should be every driver’s nightmare: two manhole covers were thrown onto the autobahn from a bridge over the A7 near Hildesheim – two people were injured. The police arrested a 50-year-old suspect. A magistrate issued a pre-trial arrest warrant against him on Sunday afternoon, according to the Hildesheim public prosecutor’s office. The 50-year-old was due to go to jail on Sunday. One of the manhole covers had hit a moving car early on Saturday morning and smashed through the windshield. The 52-year-old driver was seriously injured, his 43-year-old passenger even life-threatening.
Rescue workers treated the two injured people from Baden-Württemberg and took them to a hospital. According to the police, the 43-year-old was out of danger on Saturday afternoon. The second manhole cover and stones landed in the northbound oncoming lane, damaging at least four vehicles.
A suspect is a 50-year-old from the district of Hildesheim. The police and public prosecutor’s office said on Saturday afternoon that he was the target of the investigation during the search for the crime. Further details about the man were not initially known.
According to the report, the suspect is not a blank slate
However, the “Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung” reported that the man had been busy with the authorities for years. According to the report, he was already in court in 2016 for a whole series of crimes in Hildesheim – according to which he stole newspaper packages and bicycles again and again for months, and he is also said to be responsible for damage to property at an elementary school. There he is said to have stolen or hidden manhole covers several times. According to the report, the 50-year-old with a criminal record said at the time that inner voices had ordered him to commit the crimes. He was sentenced to one year in prison without parole. The public prosecutor’s office in Hildesheim was initially unavailable for comment.
According to a police spokeswoman, the manhole covers were thrown off a bridge on Saturday night that runs over the autobahn between the towns of Hasede and Asel north of Hildesheim. The police used several patrol cars, and a helicopter was also in action. The two manhole covers, which weigh several kilograms, and the stones were secured and are to be examined for traces. According to initial findings, the manhole covers came from an industrial area in Harsum in the Hildesheim district.
Forensic specialists secured evidence at the scene of the crime on the Autobahn on Saturday morning. An expert was also called in. The autobahn between Hanover and Kassel was therefore blocked in both directions between the autobahn triangle Hannover-Süd and Hildesheim-Drispenstedt until the afternoon. There was a traffic jam.
There have recently been no similar cases in the Hildesheim area, said the police spokeswoman. However, in recent years there have been cases in Lower Saxony in which stones and manhole covers have been thrown onto roadways: In 2016, two manhole covers were thrown from a bridge onto the A27 near Walsrode in the Heidekreis. Motorists escaped with a fright. In 2008, a six-kilogram wooden block thrown from a motorway bridge near Oldenburg smashed through the window of a car, killing a 33-year-old woman. A court sentenced the then 31-year-old perpetrator to life imprisonment.
dpa/tgab