Gradually, details of the pedestrian incident that occurred in the heart of the German capital, Berlin, on Wednesday, are unfolding, revealing, based on media reports, that it was deliberate, following the arrest of the suspect. The German newspaper "Bild" quoted an investigator as saying, "This was by no means an accident; it's a person in a frenzy, a cold-blooded killer," referring to the driver of the Renault vehicle that struck multiple pedestrians, resulting in one death and 30 injuries.
British network "Sky News" reported that a note believed to be a "confession letter" was found in the car; however, the state interior minister, Iris Spranger, denied this, stating that "signs" were discovered in the vehicle. Berlin police informed "Sky News" that a 29-year-old man, believed to be the driver and holding both German and Armenian citizenship, was behind the wheel. The newspaper "Bild" reported that witnesses said the man initially fled but was later apprehended and handed over to the police.
The victim turned out to be a teacher who was in the street with a group of her students, with 30 others injured in the incident. The site was overwhelmed with numerous police and ambulance vehicles, as well as a helicopter to assist the injured.
Sky News correspondent Siobhan Robbins reported that the car drove down the street, striking a group of people, then returned to the road, mounted the sidewalk again before crashing into the front of a store. This occurred around 10:30 AM on Rankestrasse, near the main shopping area of Breitscheidplatz, which was the scene of a Christmas market attack in 2016 that killed 11 people.
Actor Jon Baroman, who was at the scene, told Sky News that he saw "a dead person in the middle of the road, covered up." He added, "What a horror. These people woke up this morning to spend a normal day and were doing their daily activities. I mean, we were shopping, but imagine what might have happened if we had come out of the store just one minute earlier!" expressing his belief that what happened "seems deliberate."
Another witness named Gil, a British architect, stated, "There were broken chairs and tables on the sidewalk as remnants of the destruction." He added, "In the first ten or twenty minutes, there was just total chaos; we kept walking through the site without really realizing what was happening."
