A white car drove into a crowd at Berlin's LGBTQ+ Pride parade Saturday night, killing one person and injuring 17 others, several of them with life-threatening injuries. The vehicle struck people on a footpath in Tiergarten Park, near the route of the Pride march, shortly before 10 p.m. local time, then crashed into a tree. The driver fled the scene.
According to reports from CBS News and Al Jazeera, police spokesperson Florian Nath told reporters in the early hours of Sunday that investigators had identified a suspect. The man is known to authorities and is from Berlin. He has not been arrested.
"Based on the investigators' initial findings, we have already identified a suspected perpetrator," Nath said. "He is known to us as a member of Islamic circles here in Berlin."
Nath said police were moving quickly. "Our search for this person is proceeding at full speed," he said. He added that "we still have no information whatsoever regarding his specific motives, the exact sequence of events, or his role in the crime itself."
More than 2,200 police officers had been on duty in Berlin since Saturday morning to protect the parade and other LGBTQ+ events across the city. The celebration, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day, is one of Europe's largest Pride events. Hundreds of thousands of people attended.
The event in front of the Brandenburg Gate was shut down at about 10:15 p.m. A band's performance was stopped mid-set. Police posted on X calling on everyone to leave the area immediately and to avoid traveling through Tiergarten Park. Emergency workers flooded the scene, and officers lit up the area between Potsdamer Platz and the southern side of the Tiergarten tunnel as they searched for evidence.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner reacted with anger. "Following a peaceful and vibrant pride parade, the rally for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was attacked in the most brutal manner," he said. "This is an attack on our free and cosmopolitan society. I have confidence in the police and security authorities, who will be working around the clock to investigate."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also responded Sunday, saying he and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt would "push to make sure this horrific act is fully investigated and punished."
Julian Miethig, who had attended the event at the Brandenburg Gate, said he was heading to an afterparty when a friend told him that "something bad happened there and there are a lot of fire trucks, a lot of emergency vehicles, ambulances." He went to Tiergarten to see for himself.
"It's a dark day for the community," he said.
Before the attack, the parade had been peaceful. Participants had marched through the city for hours, dancing to music and cheering for around 80 floats. The suspect remained at large as of early Sunday morning.
