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The teacher on a school trip has died after a car crashed into a crowd in Berlin on Wednesday, said Berlin’s top security official, Iris Spranger.
The German media Bild reported that he was with a group of students on Tauentzienstraße when the incident happened.
The driver is said to be a 29-year-old German-Armenian living in Berlin. The suspect was arrested by police at the scene and has been named in the German media as “Gor H”.
The car was traveling at about 150 mph (93 mph), according to Bild.
Six people were injured and three others were seriously injured, fire spokesman Adrian Wentzel said.
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The incident took place in Rankestrasse, near the Breitscheidplatz in the main shopping district, the scene of the attack on the Berlin Christmas Market in 2016 in which 11 people died.
According to police, a man collided with people on the corner around 10:30 a.m. local time before returning the car to the road and then crashing into a shop window around an island beyond.
Germany: A car crashes into a crowd, killing at least one person in Berlin
SCOTT GILL / JOHN Barrowman
The driver, who received medical attention, was arrested and was being questioned.
Police are trying to determine if he deliberately drove pedestrians or if it was an accident, possibly caused by a medical emergency.
About 130 emergency workers rushed to the scene, officials said, adding: “The vehicle, a small car, was secured at the scene.”
Images of the scene showed blankets covering what appeared to be a body in a cordoned off area guarded by police.
Lifeguards rushed the injured in bunks to an ambulance.
Actor John Barrowman was also on the scene and posted pictures.
He said, “They’re really bad guys. There’s a lot of police, there’s a corpse in the middle of the road.”
He added: “There are all the emergency services trying to help the victims and the people.
“The police presence is incredible. They’re cleaning up the area, but it was cordoned off, I heard the bang and the shock when I was in a store and we just saw the butcher shop. “
Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey tweeted that she was “deeply shocked by this incident”.
John Barrowman was among those who attended the scene
/ John Barrowman
According to Bild, the man was driving a small Renault car.
The newspaper also reported that, according to eyewitnesses, the driver allegedly initially tried to flee before being arrested by passers-by who handed him over to police.
The incident took place near the scene of a deadly bombing in December 2016, when Anis Amri, an unsuccessful asylum seeker with Islamist ties, hijacked a truck, killed the driver and then threw at a crowded Christmas market, killing 11 more people and injuring them. dozens of others.
Amri then fled to Italy, where he was shot dead by Italian police.
A police spokesman said police had learned from the 2016 experience in dealing with Wednesday’s incident.