In Germany, police search for suspects at large after a car drove into a group of people

Nighttime incident near Hanover

Late Monday evening in Neustadt am Rübenberge — a town near Hanover in the state of Lower Saxony — a BMW was deliberately driven into a group of people. According to police information reported by Deutsche Welle on Tuesday morning, four to five people sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Police response and the search for suspects

A police patrol conducting a routine traffic check in the town intervened in the incident and fired at the vehicle in order to stop it. An unknown number of suspects left the car and fled on foot; they remain at large, a police spokesperson said. According to the spokesperson, “the sequence of events and the exact roles of those involved are still being established.”

What is known about the motives

Preliminary information indicates that the people involved knew one another and that the attackers likely targeted this specific group of people deliberately rather than acting at random, the police spokesperson said. A forensic examination of the scene is ongoing. A DPA agency correspondent described several damaged vehicles at the scene — with flat tires, a shattered rear window and bullet holes. The Deutsche Welle article is marked as being updated as new information comes in; the exact number of suspects and their motives have not yet been named.