CNN
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German authorities say a car-ramming incident in the southwestern city of Mannheim that killed two people Monday was a deliberate attack but it does not appear to have been politically or religiously motivated.
Police said Monday night the two dead were an 83-year-old woman and a 54-year-old man. Eleven others were injured.
The attacker purposefully targeted and struck people at high speed, police said at a press conference, noting that authorities originally thought they were responding to a traffic accident.
Public prosecutor Romeo Schüssler said there was “concrete evidence” that the suspected attacker suffers from a psychological illness. Police searched the suspect’s house Monday, the prosecutor added.
Mannheim police said they had arrested the suspect after launching a large-scale manhunt in the city center shortly after midday local time (6 a.m. ET).
The suspect is a 40-year-old German national from the neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate state, police said.
“We are all deeply shocked by this heinous inhumane attack on peaceful people,” said Christian Specht, mayor of Mannheim in a statement posted on the city website. “Our thoughts are with the dead and injured, their families and friends.”
Mikla Cela, a worker at a restaurant in the city center, told CNN that he saw a black car drive by at high speed. He said he later heard several people screaming and saw a man with a white jacket lying on the floor.
Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and likely Germany’s next chancellor, said he was “shocked” by Monday’s incident, as well as several other “terrible acts” that have rocked the country in recent months.
“Germany must become a safe country again. We will work towards this with the utmost determination,” Merz said.
Mannheim University Hospital said that three of the injured people it has received are receiving urgent acute care, including a child.
Ferry Overdevest, the owner of a flower store in central Mannheim, told CNN that around 30 people had sought shelter in his shop and that ambulances were on the streets outside.
Germany has been rocked by a string of deadly car ramming attacks in recent months.
In December, a vehicle plowed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people, including a 9-year-old boy. The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who had lived in Germany for more than a decade and worked to help Saudis leave his home country. Social media posts showed he was a fervent critic of Islam.
In February, a person drove a Mini Cooper into demonstrators in Munich, killing a mother and her child and injuring more than 30 others. The suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan man.
That attack came on the eve of the Munich Security Conference and just days before the country’s federal election, where concerns over immigration and security helped propel the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to second place.
Monday’s incident comes as Germany celebrates “Rose Monday,” a carnival held before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.
German police were already on high alert ahead of the carnival celebrations, but the incident in Mannheim has prompted some forces to take additional measures. Police in Ulm, a city southeast of Mannheim, said they have “noticeably increased” their presence around carnival events.