The suspect of Monday’s Mannheim attack, who is said to have driven a car at speed through crowds in a pedestrianised area, has been discharged from hospital and will be interrogated by police today.
Two people were killed, an 83-year-old woman and a 54-year-old man, on Monday in an apparent car attack in the German city of Mannheim. Earlier casualty reports have been revised to ten, with four said to be seriously wounded and six injured and receiving treatment at a city hospital.
The suspect, a 40-year-old German passport holder, has been named in line with national privacy law as ‘Alexander S.’, who is described as an unmarried landscape gardener with no children, and who lived alone. Local newspaper Die Rheinpfalz states that while the man had no significant criminal record, he did have some interactions with the police and crimes against his name going back several years. In one case he served a short prison sentence for assault, he was booked for drunk driving, and had a run-in with police for a Facebook post, said to have been “right-wing extremist” in nature.
Another element for the investigation is the presence of notes inside the car, including one taped to the dashboard. It is reported by Bild that the paper was covered in hand-written notes and equations pertaining to speed and driving, including calculating reaction times and stopping distances.
Despite these factors, authorities say at the moment their investigations do not point to a political motive, but rather one of personal circumstance and mental illness. Alexander S. is said to have reported himself to hospital last year for suicidal feelings, wanting to set himself on fire with gasoline.
German broadsheet Die Welt cites Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister who stated the investigation so far had not found evidence of “an extremist or religious background” and said it was “more likely” to be motivated by grievance or illness, given there are — as stated elsewhere — “concrete indications” of mental illness.
At the time of the suspect’s arrest, he is said to have put a blank firing pistol in his mouth and discharged it. This injured him, and he was admitted to hospital for treatment. He has now been released from hospital into police custody as of Tuesday morning, reports Stuttgarter Zeitung, and will be interrogated by police this morning. He will also appear before a judge today.
Remarkably, the chief of police for the city was an eye-witness of the attack and called in the incident, providing a detailed description of the vehicle after it fled the scene. She is reported to have said: “I knew immediately that something was wrong. The car just drove on without braking, right through the crowd… When the first emergency call was made to the control center, it was not clear whether it was an accident or intentional. I was able to clarify that immediately and also provide information about the getaway car, because the rampaging driver drove on”.
Car attacks have become a recurring feature in European urban life — “part and parcel of living in a big city”, as some might say — and have experienced a sudden resurgence in recent months. Of particular note is the fact the demographic profile of suspects appears to be shifting away from migrants on the very fringes of society. As reported:
…a little before Christmas a Saudi Arabian ‘doctor’ ploughed through crowds at a Christmas Market in the Cathedral Square, Magdeburg. Five were killed, including a child, and hundreds injured.
Then in February, two people were killed and dozens injured when an Afghan migrant drove a car into a crowd in Munich. Again, one of those killed was a young child.
In both attacks, the perpetrators were what might be called model migrants, men who had superficially integrated into society and who had jobs, a difficult new development for intensely pro-mass-migration European governments, coming from a situation where hitherto those drawn to violent extremism had tended to be loners, criminals, and failed asylum seekers on the fringes of society.
Mannheim is also the scene of the second serious mass-casualty attack in 12 months:
As reported at the time, an Afghan migrant went on a stabbing rampage at a political event held by the anti-mass migration AfD party in the city. Police had been monitoring the event and were able to respond very quickly, but tragically one of those officers misjudged what was happening and rushed to arrest one of the German victims, not the migrant perpetrator.
This mistake gave the Afghan an opportunity, and he stabbed that officer in the neck as he attempted to wrestle one of the stabbing victims to the ground. The police officer later died.
