One dead after driver plows through group of students on a field trip in Berlin

A man drove his car through throngs of people milling about a popular shopping district in Berlin Wednesday morning, killing one person and injuring nine others seriously.

Authorities believe it was deliberate and not an accident. Berlin’s top security official, Iris Spranger, tweeted it was “amok act by a psychologically impaired person.”

The crash occurred around 10 a.m. on the end of the Kurfuerstendamm shopping boulevard, in the west side of the German capital, according to police reports. Police spokesman Thilo Cablitz said the vehicle plowed through a group of students and then returned to the road, only to crash into a shop window about a block down.

Spranger said the woman killed was a teacher escorting her class on a field trip from a secondary school in the central German state of Hesse. Another nine people were hurt in the crash, including six victims who sustained life-threatening injuries and three more who were seriously injured, fire service spokesman Adrian Wentzel.

According to photos taken on the scene, the vehicle, a Renault Clio with Berlin license plates, finally came to a stop after slamming into the store front.

Passersby detained the driver and he was almost immediately taken into custody by a police officer not far from the scene. He was identified only as a 29-year-old German-Armenian who lived in Berlin.

The driver was taken to a hospital after the crash.

Police said on Twitter that 130 rescue workers were on site.

The exact number of people injured in the chaos remained unclear in the immediate aftermath. Police said more than a dozen were hurt, including several in serious condition. Other news outlets have the injured count as high as 30.

An investigation into the incident is ongoing. Authorities said they are currently working to determine whether the driver intentionally rammed his car through the crowd. Police said they also discovered posters inside the man’s car “in which he expressed views about Turkey.”

Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey said she was “deeply shocked” by the incident but warned against jumping to conclusions in connection with the carnage.

“Before speculating, I think it’s important at this stage to really let the police and fire service conduct their investigation,” the mayor said. “We want the greatest possible transparency, but we also want reliable information.”

With News Wire Services