Car crashes into crowd in Munich, injuring at least 28 in alleged attack

A car plowed into demonstrators in Munich on Thursday injuring at least 28 people, in what a local official said was a suspected attack, shortly before world leaders were due in the southern German city for a high-level security conference.

The officials suspect the 10:30 a.m. collision was a planned attack by the 24-year-old, according to Markus Söder, the governor of Bavaria, the state of which Munich is the capital. According to authorities, the automobile passed a police cruiser that was escorting the rally and crashed into the throng. Officers fired one shot as they arrested the suspect.

According to Munich police head Christian Huber, the suspect is thought to be a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker. Markus Söder, Bavarian governor, stated that the event "is suspected to be an attack."

Police will look into how far along the suspect was with his asylum application, said to spokesperson Thomas Schelshorn. “What motive the perpetrator had, to drive into this crowd with a vehicle, has to be now found out,” he said, adding that officers will conduct witness interviews and forensics “to get a picture at the end of what could have been behind this.”

Bavarian State Interior Minister Joachim Hermann said at the scene this morning: “We do not know at the moment and do not assume that there is any connection with the security conference. However, the reason of this Afghan offender must be thoroughly explored.

The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office and Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism has taken over the probe due to “indications of an extremist background,” a police news release said.

According to German tabloid Bild, the mayor of the Bavarian city expressed disbelief at the occurrence. “The police president has informed me that a vehicle drove into a group of people and many people were injured,” said Reiter. “I am deeply shaken. My thoughts are with the injured.

Police held the motorist and determined he posed no additional threat, according to an X post. Dieter Reiter, the mayor of the city, said that children were among those hurt.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was "shocked by a terrible attack" in Munich. Our sympathies are with the victims and their families. The perpetrator must feel the full force of the rule of law,” he said in a post on X.

Germany is reeling from a series of seemingly unrelated assaults carried out by Afghan and Middle Eastern immigrants over the previous year. A guy drove into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, central Germany, hurting up to 300 people and killing six.

Last month, an Afghan immigrant with an evident mental disorder and a deportation order killed a little kid and an adult in a knife assault in a Bavarian park.